The Listener And Other Stories

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THE LISTENER

Books by Algernon Blackwood
*THE EMPTY HOUSE

THE LISTENER
VAUGHAN AND GOMME $1.35 net

JOHN SILENCE

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THE EDUCATION OF UNCLE PAUL

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JIMBO : A FANTASY
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THE LOST VALLEY
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THE HUMAN CHORD
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THE CENTAUR

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PAN’S GARDEN

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A PRISONER IN FAIRYLAND
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TEN MINUTE STORIES
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* «The Empty House” is to be published
in 1915 by Messrs. Vaughan & Gomme, uni-
form in style with “The Listener,” and at
the same price.

THE LISTENER

AND OTHER STORIES

BY

ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

AUTHOR OF “JOHN SILENCE” ‘‘ THE LOST VALLEY ”
‘* THE EMPTY HOUSE ” ETC,

NEW YORK
VAUGHAN & GOMME

MCMXIV

This first American edition of “ The Listener,”
printed in England, consists of five hundred
copies. VAUGHAN AND GOMMB.

All Rights Reserved

TO

M. L. W,

THE
Max
THE
THE
THE
THE

May

Miss SLUMBUBBLE—AND CLAUSTROPHOBIA

LISTENER

CONTENTS

*

HENSIG—BACTERIOLOGIST AND MURDERER.

WILLows

INSANITY OF JONES

DANCE OF DEATH ;

Op Man oF Visions .

Day Evre

THE Woman’s GHosT STORY A °

.

PAGE

337

THE LISTENER

Sept. 4.—I have hunted all over London for rooms
suited to my income—{£120 a year—and have at
last found them. Two rooms, without modern
conveniences, it is true, and in an old, ram-
shackle building, but within a stone’s throw of
P—— Place and in an eminently respectable street.
The rent is only £25 a year. I had begun to despair
when at last I found them by chance. The chance
was a mere chance, and unworthy of record. I
had to sign a lease for a year, and I did so willingly.
The furniture from our old place in H shire,
which has been stored so long, will just suit them.

Oct. 1.—Here I am in my two rooms, in the
centre of London, and not far from the offices of
the periodicals where occasionally I dispose of an
article or two. The building is at the end of a cul-
de-sac. The alley is well paved and clean, and lined
chiefly with the backs of sedate and institutional-
looking buildings. There is a stable in it. Myown
house is dignified with the title of “Chambers.” I
feel as if one day the honour must prove too much
for it, and it will swell with pride—and fall asunder.
It is very old. The floor of my sitting-room has

10 THE LISTENER

valleys and low hills on it, and the top of the door
slants away from the ceiling with a glorious disregard
of what is usual. They must have quarrelled—
fifty years ago—and have been going apart ever
since.

Oct. 2.—My landlady is old and thin, with a
faded, dusty face. She is uncommunicative. The
few words she utters seem to cost her pain. Pro-
bably her lungs are half choked with dust. She
keeps my rooms as free from this commodity as
possible, and has the assistance of a strong girl who
brings up the breakfast and lights the fire. As I
have said already, she is not communicative. In
reply to pleasant efforts on my part she informed
me briefly that I was the only occupant of the house
at present. My rooms had not been occupied for
some years. There had been other gentlemen
upstairs, but they had left.

She never looks straight at me when she speaks,
but fixes her dim eyes on my middle waistcoat
button, till I get nervous and begin to think it
isn’t on straight, or is the wrong sort of button
altogether.

Oct. 8.—My week’s book is nicely kept, and so
far is reasonable. Milk and sugar 7d., bread 6d.,
butter 8d., marmalade 6d., eggs 1s. 8d., laundress
2s. od., oil 6d., attendance 5s.; total 12s, 2d.

The landlady has a son who, she told me, is
“somethink on a homnibus.” He comes occa-
sionally to see her. I think he drinks, for he talks

THE LISTENER . TI

very loud, regardless of the hour of the day or night,
and tumbles about over the furniture downstairs.

All the morning I sit indoors writing—articles ;
verses for the comic papers ; a novel I ve been “at”
for three years, and concerning which I have
dreams; a children’s book, in which the imagina-
tion has free rein ; and another book which is to last
as long as myself, since it is an honest record of my
soul’s advance or retreat in the struggle of life.
Besides these, I keep a book of poems which I use
as a safety valve, and concerning which I have no
dreams whatsoever. Between the lot I am always
occupied. In the afternoons I generally try to take
a walk for my health’s sake, through Regent’s Park,
into Kensington Gardens, or farther afield to Hamp-
stead Heath.

Oct. 10.—Everything went wrong to-day. I have
two eggs for breakfast. This morning one of them
was bad. I rang the bell for Emily. When she
came in I was reading the paper, and, without look-
ing up, I said, “Egg’s bad.” “Oh, is it, sir?” she
said; “I'll get another one,’ and went out, taking
the egg with her. I waited my breakfast for her
return, which was in five minutes. She put the
new egg on the table and went away. But, when I
looked down, I saw that she had taken away the good
egg and left the bad one—all green and yellow—in
the slop basin. I rang again.

“ You've taken the wrong egg,” I said,

“Oh!” she exclaimed ; “1 thought the one I took
down didn’t smell so very bad.” In due time she

12 THE LISTENER

returned with the good egg, and I resumed my
breakfast with two eggs, but less appetite. It was
all very trivial, to be sure, but so stupid that I felt
annoyed. The character of that egg influenced
everything I did. I wrote a bad article, and tore it
up. I got abad headache. I used bad words—to
myself. Everything was bad, sol “chucked ” work
and went for a long walk.

I dined at a cheap chop-house on my way back,
and reached home about nine o’clock.

Rain was just beginning to fall as I came in, and
the wind was rising. It promised an ugly night.
The alley looked dismal and dreary, and the hall of
the house, as I passed through it, felt chilly as a
tomb. It was the first stormy night I had experi-
enced in my new quarters. The draughts were
awful. They came criss-cross, met in the middle
of the room, and formed eddies and whirlpools and
cold silent currents that almost lifted the hair of my
head. I stuffed up the sashes of the windows with
neckties and odd socks, and sat over the smoky fire
to keep warm. First I tried to write, but*found it
too cold. My hand turned to ice on the paper.

What tricks the wind did play with the old place !
It came rushing up the forsaken alley with a sound
like the feet of a hurrying crowd of people who
stopped suddenly at the door. I felt as if a lot of
curious folk had arranged themselves just outside
and were staring up at my windows. Then they
took to their heels again and fled whispering and
Jaughing down the lane, only, however, to return
with the next gust of wind and repeat their imper-

THE LISTENER 13

tinence. On the other side of my room a single
square window opens into a sort of shaft, or well,
that measures about six feet across to the back wall
of another house. Down this funnel the wind
dropped, and puffed and shouted. Such noises I
never heard before. Between these two entertain-
ments I sat over the fire in a great-coat, listening to
the deep booming inthe chimney. It was like being
in a ship at sea, and I almost looked for the floor
to rise in indulations and rock to and fro. |

Oct. 12.—I wish I were not quite so lonely—and
so poor. And yet I love both my loneliness and
my poverty. The former makes me appreciate the
companionship of the wind and rain, while the
latter preserves my liver and prevents me wasting
time in dancing attendance upon women. Poor,
ill-dressed men are not acceptable “attendants.”

My parents are dead, and my only sister is—no,
not dead exactly, but married to a very rich man.
They travel most of the time, he to find his health,
she to lose herself. Through sheer neglect on her
part she has long passed out of my life. The door
closed when, after an absolute silence of five years,
she sent me a cheque for £50 at Christmas. It was
signed by her husband! I returned it to her ina
thousand pieces and in anunstamped envelope. So
at least I had the satisfaction of knowing that it cost
her something! She wrote back with a broad quill
pen that covered a whole page with three lines, “ You
are evidently as cracked as ever, and rude and un-
grateful into the bargain.” It had always been my

14 THE LISTENER

special terror lest the insanity in my father’s family
should leap across the generations and appear in
me. This thought haunted me, and she knew it.
So after this little exchange of civilities the door
slammed, never to open again. I heard the crash
it made, and, with it, the falling from the walls of
my heart of many little bits of china with their own
peculiar value—rare china, some of it, that only
needed dusting. The same walls, too, carried
mirrors in which I used sometimes to see reflected
the misty lawns of childhood, the daisy chains, the
wind-torn blossoms scattered through the orchard
by warm rains, the robbers’ cave in the long walk,
and the hidden store of apples in the hay-loft. She
was my inseparable companion then—but, when
the door slammed, the mirrors cracked across their
entire length, and the visions they held vanished for
ever. Now I am quite alone. At forty one can-
not begin all over again to build up careful
friendships, and all others are comparatively worth-
less.

Oct. 14.—My bedroom is 10 by ro. It is below
the level of the front room, and a step leads down
into it. Both rooms are very quiet on calm nights,
for there is no traffic down this forsaken alley-way.
In spite of the occasional larks of the wind, it is a
most sheltered strip. At its upper end, below my
windows, all the cats of the neighbourhood congre-
gate as soon as darkness gathers. They lie undis-
turbed on the long ledge of a blind window of the
opposite building, for after the postman has come

THE LISTENER 15

and gone at 9.30, no footsteps ever dare to inter-
rupt their sinister conclave, no step but my own, or
sometimes the unsteady footfall of the son who “is
somethink on a homnibus,”

Oct. 15.—I dined at an “A.B.C.” shop on poached
eggs and coffee, and then went for a stroll round the
outer ‘edge of Regent’s Park. It was ten o’clock
when I got home. I counted no less than thirteen
cats, all of a dark colour, crouching under the lee
side of the alley walls. It was a cold night, and the
stars shone like points of ice in a blue-black sky.
The cats turned their heads and stared at me in
silence as I passed. An odd sensation of shyness
took possession of me under the glare of so many
pairs of unblinking eyes. As I fumbled with the
latch-key they jumped noiselessly down and pressed
against my legs, as if anxious to be let in. But I
slammed the door in their faces and ran quickly up-
stairs. The front room, as I entered to grope for
the matches, felt as cold as a stone vault, and the
air held an unusual dampness.

Oct. 17.—For several days I have been working
on a ponderous article that allows no play for the
fancy. My imagination requires a judicious rein ;
Iam afraid to let it loose, for it carries me some-
times into appalling places beyond the stars and
beneath the world. No one realises the danger
more than I do, But what a foolish thing to write
here—for there is no one to know, no one to
realise! My mind of late has held unusual thoughts,

16 THE LISTENER

thoughts I have never had before, about medicines
and drugs and the treatment of strange illnesses.
I cannot imagine their source. At no time in my
life have I dwelt upon such ideas as now constantly
throng my brain. I have had no exercise lately, for
the weather has been shocking; and all my after-
noons have been spent in the reading-room of the
British Museum, where I have a reader’s ticket.

I have made an unpleasant discovery: there are
rats in the house. At night from my bed I have
heard them scampering across the hills and valleys
_ of the front room, and my sleep has been a good
deal disturbed in consequence.

Oct. 19.—The landlady, I find, has a little boy
with her, probably her son’s child. In fine weather
he plays in the alley, and draws a wooden cart over
the cobbles. One of the wheels is off, and it makes
a most distracting noise. After putting up with it
as long as possible, I found it was getting on my
nerves, and I could not write. So I rang the bell.
Emily answered it.

“Emily, will you ask the little fellow to make less
noise ? It’s impossible to work.”

The girl went downstairs, and soon afterwards
the child was called in by the kitchen door. I felt
rather a brute for spoiling his play. In a few
minutes, however, the noise began again, and I felt
that he was the brute. He dragged the broken toy
with a string over the stones till the rattling noise
jarred every nerve in my body. It became unbear-
able, and I rang the bell a second time.

THE LISTENER - oy

“That noise must be puta stop to!” I said to the
girl, with decision.

“Yes, sir,” she grinned, “I know ; but one of the
wheels is hoff. The men in the stable offered to
mend it for ’im, but he wouldn’t let them. He
says he likes it that way.”

“T can’t help what he likes. The noise must
stop. I can’t write.”

“Yes, sir; I’ll tell Mrs. Monson.”

The noise stopped for the day then.

Oct. 23.—Every day for the past week that cart
has rattled over the stones, till I have come to think
of it as a huge carrier’s van with four wheels and two
horses ; and every morning I have been obliged to
ring the bell and have it stopped. The last time
Mrs. Monson herself came up, and said she was
sorry I had been annoyed; the sounds should not
occur again. With rare discursiveness she went on
to ask if I was comfortable, and how I liked the
rooms. I replied cautiously. I mentioned the rats.
She said they were mice. I spoke of the draughts.
She said, “ Yes, it were a draughty ’ouse.” I re-
ferred to the cats, and she said they had been as
long as she could remember. By way of conclu-
sion, she informed me that the house was over two
hundred years old, and that the last gentleman who
had occupied my rooms was a painter who “’ad
real Jimmy Bueys and Raffles ’anging all hover
the walls.” It took me some moments to discern
that Cimabue and Raphael were in the woman’s

mind.
B

18 THE LISTENER

Oct. 24.—Last night the son who is “somethink
on ahomnibus”’ came.in. He had evidently been
drinking, for I heard loud and angry voices below
in the kitchen long after I had gone to bed. Once,
too, I caught the singular words rising up to me
through the floor, “ Burning from top to bottom is
the only thing that'll ever make this ’ouse right.” I
knocked on the floor, and the voices ceased sud-
denly, though later I again heard their clamour in
my dreams.

These rooms are very quiet, almost too quiet
sometimes. On windless nights they are silent as
the grave, and the house might be miles in the
country. The roar of London’s traffic reaches me
only in heavy, distant vibrations. It holds an
ominous note sometimes, like that of an approach-
ing army, or an immense tidal-wave very far away
thundering in the night,

Oct. 27.—Mrs. Monson, though admirably silent,
is a foolish, fussy woman. She does such stupid
things. In dusting the room she puts all my things
in the wrong places. The ash-trays, which should
be on the writing-table, she sets ina silly row on
the mantelpiece. The pen-tray, which should be
beside the inkstand, she hides away cleverly among
the books on my reading-desk. My gloves she
arranges daily in idiotic array upon a half-filled
book-shelf, and I always have to rearrange them
on the low table by the door. She places my arm-
chair at impossible angles between the fire and the
light, and the tablecloth—the one with Trinity Hall

THE LISTENER 19

stains—she puts on the table in such a fashion that
when I look at it I feel as if my tie and all my
clothes were on crooked andawry. She exasperates
me. Her very silence and meekness are irritating.
Sometimes I feel inclined to throw the inkstand at
her, just to bring an expression into her watery
eyes and a squeak from those colourless lips. Dear
me! What violent expressions I am making use of !
How very foolish of me! And yet it almost seems
as if the words were not my own, but had been
spoken into my ear—I mean, I never make use of
such terms naturally.

Oct. 30.—I have been herea month. The place
does not agree with me, I think. My headaches are
more frequent and violent, and my nerves are a
perpetual source of discomfort and annoyance.

I have conceived a great dislike for Mrs. Monson,
a feeling Iam certain she reciprocates. Somehow,
the impression comes frequently to me that there
are goings on in this house of which I know nothing,
and which she is careful to hide from me.

Last night her son slept in the house, and this
morning as I was standing at the window I saw him
go out. He glanced up and caught my eye. It was
a loutish figure and a singularly repulsive face that
I saw, and he gave me the benefit of a very un-
pleasant leer. At least, so I imagined.

Evidently I am getting absurdly sensitive to trifles,
and I suppose it is my disordered nerves making
themselves felt. Inthe British Museum this after-
noon I noticed several people at the readers’ table

20 THE LISTENER

staring at me and watching every movement I made.
Whenever I looked up from my books I found their
eyes upon me. Itseemed to me unnecessary and
unpleasant, and I left earlier than was my custom.
When I reached the door I threw back a last look
into the room, and saw every head at the table turned
_in my direction. It annoyed me very much, and
yet I know it is foolish to take note of such things.
When I am well they pass me by. I must get more
regular exercise. Of late I have had next to none.

Nov. 2.—The utter stillness of this house is begin-
ning to oppress me. I wish there were other fellows
living upstairs. No footsteps ever sound overhead,
and no tread ever passes my door to go up the next
flight of stairs. Iam beginning to feel some curiosity
to go up myself and see what the upper rooms are
like. I feel lonely here and isolated, swept into a
deserted corner of the world and forgotten. ...
Once I actually caught myself gazing into the long,
cracked mirrors, trying to see the sunlight dancing
beneath the trees in the orchard. But only deep
shadows seemed to congregate there now, and I soon
desisted,

It has been very dark all day, and no wind
stirring. The fogs have begun. I had to use a
reading-lamp all this morning. There was no cart
to be heard to-day. I actually missed it. This
morning, in the gloom and silence, I think I could
almost have welcomed it. After all, the sound is a
very human one, and this empty house at the end
of the alley holds other noises that are not quite so
satisfactory.

THE LISTENER =e

I have never once seen a policeman in the lane,
and the postmen always hurry out with no evidence
of a desire to loiter. ~

to P.M.—As I write this I hear no sound but the
deep murmur of the distant traffic and the low sigh-
ing of the wind. The two sounds melt into one
another. Now and again a cat raises its shrill, un-
canny cry upon the darkness. The cats are always
there under my windows when the darkness falls.
The wind is dropping into the funnel with a noise
like the sudden sweeping of immense distant wings.
It is a dreary night. I feet lost and forgotten.

Nov. 3.—From my windows I can see arrivals.
When any one comes to the door I can just see the
hat and shoulders and the hand on the bell. Only
two fellows have been to see me since I came here
two months ago. Both of them I saw from the
window before they came up, and heard their voices
asking if I was in, Neither of them ever came
back.

I have finished the ponderous article. On reading
it through, however, I was dissatisfied with it, and
drew my pencil through almost every page. There
were strange expressions and ideas in it that I
could not explain, and viewed with amazement,
not to say alarm. They did not sound like my
very own, and I could not remember having written
them. Can it be that my memory is beginning to
be affected ?

My pens are never to be found. That stupid old
woman puts them ina different place each day, I
must give her due credit for finding so many new

22 THE LISTENER

hiding places ; such ingenuity is wonderful. I have
told her repeatedly, but she always says, “I'll speak
to Emily, sir.” Emily always says, “I'll tell Mrs.
Monson, sir.” Their foolishness makes me irritable
and scatters all my thoughts. I should like to stick
the lost pens into them and turn them out, blind-
eyed, to be scratched and mauled by those thousand
hungry cats. Whew! What a ghastly thought!
Where in the world did it come from? Such an
idea is no more my own than it is the policeman’s.
Yet I felt I had to write it. It was like a voice
singing in my head, and my pen wouldn't stop till
the last word was finished. What ridiculous non-
sense! I must and will restrain myself. I must
take more regular exercise; my nerves and liver
plague me horribly.

Nov. 4.—I attended a curious lecture in the French
quarter on “ Death,” but the room was so hot and I
was so weary that I fell asleep. The only part I
heard, however, touched my imagination vividly.
Speaking of suicides, the lecturer said that self-
murder was no escape from the miseries of the
present, but only a preparation of greater sorrow for
_ the future. Suicides, he declared, cannot shirk their
responsibilities so easily. They must return to take
up life exactly where they laid it so violently down,
but with the added pain and punishment of their
weakness. Many of them wander the earth in un-
speakable misery till they can reclothe themselves
in the body of some one else—generally a lunatic,
or weak-minded person, who cannot resist the

THE LISTENER 23

hideous obsession. This is their only means of
escape. Surely a weird and horrible idea! I wish I
had slept all the time and not heard it at all. My
mind is morbid enough without such ghastly fancies.
Such mischievous propaganda should be stopped by
the police. Vil write to the Times and suggest it.
Good idea!

I walked home through Greek Street, Soho, and
imagined that a hundred years had slipped back into
place and De Quincey was still there, haunting the
night with invocations to his “just, subtle, and
mighty” drug. His vast dreams seemed to hover
not very faraway. Once started in my brain, the
pictures refused to go away; and I saw him sleep-
ing in that cold, tenantless mansion with the strange
little waif who was afraid of its ghosts, both together
in the shadows under a single horseman’s cloak ; or
wandering in the companionship of the spectral
Anne; or, later still, on his way to the eternal ren-
dezvous at the foot of Great Titchfield Street, the
rendezvous she never was able to keep. What an
unutterable gloom, what an untold horror of sorrow
and suffering comes over me as I try to realise some-
thing of what that man—boy he then was—must
have taken into his lonely heart.

As I came up the alley I saw a light in the top
window, and a head and shoulders thrown in an ex-
aggerated shadow upon the blind. I wondered what
the son could be doing up there at such an hour.

Nov. 5.—This morning, while writing, some one
came up the creaking stairs and knocked cautiously

24 THE LISTENER

at my door. Thinking it was the landlady, I said,
“Comein!” The knock was repeated, and I cried
louder, “Come in, come in!” But no one turned the
handle, and I continued my writing with a vexed
“Well, stay out, then!” under my breath. Wenton
writing ? I tried to, but my thoughts had suddenly
dried up at their source. I could not set downa
single word. It was a dark, yellow-fog morning,
and there was little enough inspiration in the air as
it was, but that stupid woman standing just outside
my door waiting to be told again to come in roused
a spirit of vexation that filled my head to the exclu-
sion of all else. At last I jumped up and opened the
door myself.

“What do you want, and why in the world don’t
you come in?” I cried out. But the words dropped
into empty air. There was no one there. The fog
poured up the dingy staircase in deep yellow coils,
but there was no sign of a human being any-
where.

I slammed the door, with imprecations upon the
house and its noises,and went back to my work. A
few minutes later Emily came in with a letter.

“Were you or Mrs. Monson outside a few minutes
ago ee at my door?”

SSNO, Sits.

“ Are you sure ?”

“Mrs. Monson’s gone to market, and there’s no
one but me and the child in the ’ole ’ouse, and
I’ve been washing the dishes for the last hour,
sir.”

I fancied the girl’s face turned a shade paler. She

THE LISTENER 25

fidgeted towards the door with a glance over her
shoulder.

“Wait, Emily,” I said, and then told her what I
had heard. She stared stupidly at me, though her
eyes shifted now and then over the articles in the
room.

“Who was it?” I asked when I had come to the
end.

“Mrs. Monson says it’s honly mice,” she said, as
if repeating a learned lesson.

“Mice!” I exclaimed; “it’s nothing of the sort.
Some one was feeling about outside my door. Who
was it? Is the son in the house ?”

Her whole manner changed suddenly, and she
became earnest instead of evasive. She seemed
anxious to tell the truth.

“Oh no, sir ; there’s no one in the house at all but
you and me and the child, and there couldn’t ’ave
been nobody at your door. As for them knocks a
She stopped abruptly, as though she had said too
much.

“Well, what about the knocks?” I said more
gently.

“Of course,” she stammered, “the knocks isn’t
mice, nor the footsteps neither, but then i
Again she came to a full halt.

“ Anything wrong with the house?”

“ Lor’, no, sir; the drains is splendid !”

“] don’t mean drains, girl. I mean, did anything
—anything bad ever happen here ?”

She flushed up to the roots of her hair, and then
turned suddenly pale again. She was obviously in

26 THE LISTENER

considerable distress, and there was something she
was anxious, yet afraid to tell—some forbidden thing
she was not allowed to mention.

“T don’t mind what it was, only I should like to
know,” I said encouragingly.

Raising her frightened eyes to my face, she began
to blurt out something about “that which ’appened
once toa gentleman that lived hupstairs,” when a
shrill voice calling her name sounded below.

“Emily, Emily!” Itwas thereturning landlady,
and the girl tumbled downstairs as if pulled back-
ward by a rope, leaving me full of conjectures as to
what in the world could have happened to a gentle-
man upstairs that could in so curious a manner
affect my ears downstairs.

Nov. 10.—I have done capital work ; have finished
the ponderous article and had it accepted for the
Review, and another one ordered. I feel well
and cheerful, and have had regular exercise and
good sleep; no headaches, no nerves, no liver !
Those pills the chemist recommended are wonder-
ful. I can watch the child playing with his cart
and feel no annoyance; sometimes I almost feel
inclined to join him. Even the grey-faced landlady
rouses pity in me; I am sorry for her : so worn, so
weary, so oddly put together, just like the building,
She looks as if she had once suffered some shock
of terror, and was momentarily dreading another.
When I spoke to her to-day very gently about not
putting the pens in the ash-tray and the gloves on
the book-shelf she raised her faint eyes to mine for

THE LISTENER 27

the first time, and said with the ghost of a smile,
“T’ll try and remember, sir,” I felt inclined to pat
her on the back and say, “Come, cheer up and be
jolly. Life’s not so bad afterall.” Oh! lam much
better. There’s nothing like open air and success
and good sleep. They build up as if by magic the
portions of the heart eaten down by despair and
unsatisfied yearnings. Even to the cats I feel
friendly. WhenIcame in at eleven o’clock to-night
they followed me to the door in a stream, and I
stooped down to stroke the one nearest to me.
Bah! The brute hissed and spat, and struck at me
with her paws. The claw caught my hand and
drew blood in a thin line. The others danced side-
ways into the darkness, screeching, as though I had
done them an injury, I believe these cats really
hate me. Perhaps they are only waiting to be
reinforced. Then they will attack me. Ha, ha!
In spite of the momentary annoyance, this fancy sent
me laughing upstairs to my room.

The fire was out, and the room seemed unusually
cold. As I groped my way over to the mantelpiece
to find the matches I realised all at once that there
was another person standing beside me in the dark-
ness. I could, of course, see nothing, but my
fingers, feeling along the ledge, came into forcible
contact with something that was at once withdrawn.
It was cold and moist. I could have sworn it was
somebody’s hand. My flesh began to creep
instantly.

“Who's that ?” I exclaimed in a loud voice.

My voice dropped into the silence like a pebble

28 THE LISTENER

into a deep well. There was no answer, but at the
same moment I heard some one moving away from
me across the room in the direction of the door. It
was a confused sort of footstep, and the sound of
garments brushing the furniture on the way. The
same second my hand stumbled upon the match-
box, and I struck a light. I expected to see Mrs.
Monson, or Emily, or perhaps the son who is
something on an omnibus. But the flare of the
gas jet illumined an empty room ; there was not a
sign of a person anywhere. I felt the hair stir
upon my head, and instinctively I backed up
against the wall, lest something should approach me
from behind. Iwas distinctly alarmed. But the
next minute I recovered myself, The door was
open on to the landing, and I crossed the room,
not without some inward trepidation, and went out.
The light from the room fell upon the stairs, but
there was no one to be seen anywhere, nor was
there any sound on the creaking wooden staircase
to indicate a departing creature,

I was in the act of turning to go in again when a
sound overhead caught my ear. It was a very faint
sound, not unlike the sigh of wind; yet it could not
have been the wind, for the night was still as the
grave. Though it was not repeated, I resolved to
go upstairs and see for myself what it all meant.
Two senses had been affected—touch and hearing
—and I could not believe that I had been deceived,
So, with a lighted candle, I went stealthily forth on
my unpleasant journey into the upper regions of
this queer little old house,

THE LISTENER 29

On the first landing there was only one door, and
it was locked. On the second there was also only
one door, but when I turned the handle it opened.
There came forth to meet me the chill musty air
that is characteristic of a long unoccupied room.
With it there came an indescribable odour: I use
the adjective advisedly. Though very faint, diluted
as it were, it was nevertheless an odour that made
my gorge rise. I had never smelt anything like it
before, and I cannot describe it:

The room was small and square, close under the
roof, with a sloping ceiling and two tiny windows,
It was cold as the grave, without a shred of carpet
or a stick of furniture. The icy atmosphere and
the nameless odour combined to make the room
abominable to me, and, after lingering a moment
to see that it contained no cupboards or corners
into which a person might have crept for conceal-
ment, I made haste to shut the door, and went
downstairs again to bed. Evidently I had been
deceived after all as to the noise.

In the night I had a foolish but very vivid dream.
I dreamed that the landlady and another person,
dark and not properly visible, entered my room on
all fours, followed by a horde of immense cats. They
attacked me as I lay in bed, and murdered me, and
then dragged my body upstairs and deposited it on
the floor of that cold little square room under the
roof,

Nov. 11.—Since my talk with Emily—the un-
finished talk—I have hardly once set eyes on her,

30 THE LISTENER

Mrs. Monson now attends wholly to my wants. As
usual, she does everything exactly as I don’t like it
done. It is all too utterly trivial to mention, but
it is exceedingly irritating. Like small doses of
morphine often repeated, she has finally a cumula-
tive effect.

~ Nov. 12.—This morning I woke early, and came
into the front room to get a book, meaning to read
in bed till it was time to get up. Emily was laying
the fire.

“ Good morning!” I said cheerfully. ‘Mind you
make a good fire. It’s very cold.”

The girl turned and showed me a startled face.
It was not Emily at all!

“Where’s Emily ?”’ I exclaimed.

“You mean the girl as was ’ere before me?”

“ Has Emily left ?”

“1 came on the 6th,” she replied suilenly, “and
she’d gone then.” I got my book and went back to
bed. Emily must have been sent away almost
immediately after our conversation. This reflection
kept coming between me and the printed page. I
was glad when it was time to get up. Such prompt
energy, such merciless decision, seemed to argue
something of importance—to somebody.

”

Nov. 13.—The wound inflicted by the cat’s claw
has swollen, and causes me annoyance and some
pain. It throbs and itches. I’m afraid my blood
must be in poor condition, or it would have healed
by now. I opened it with a penknife soaked in an
antiseptic solution, and cleansed it thoroughly. I

THE LISTENER 3I

have heard unpleasant stories of the results of
wounds inflicted by cats.

Nov. 14.—In spite of the curious effect this house
certainly exercises upon my nerves, I like it. It is
lonely and deserted in the very heart of London,
but it is also for that reason quiet to work in. I
wonder why it isso cheap. Some people might be
suspicious, but I did not even ask the reason. No
answer is better than a lie. If only I could remove
the cats from the outside and the rats from the
inside. I feel that I shall grow accustomed more
and more to its peculiarities, and shall die here.
Ah, that expression reads queerly and gives a wrong
impression: I meant live and die here. I shall
renew the lease from year to year till one of us
crumbles to pieces. From present indications the
building will be the first to go.

Nov. 16.—It is abominable the way my nerves go
up and down with me—and rather discouraging.
This morning I woke to find my clothes scattered
about the room, and a cane chair overturned beside
the bed. My coat and waistcoat looked just as if
they had been tried on by some one in the night.
I had horribly vivid dreams, too, in which some one
covering his face with his hands kept coming close
up to me, crying out as if in pain, “ Where can I|
find covering ? Oh, who will clothe me?” How
silly, and yet it frightened me a little. It was so
dreadfully real. It is now over a year since I last
walked in my sleep and woke up with such a shock

32 THE LISTENER

on the cold pavement of Earl’s Court Road, where I
then lived. I thought I was cured, but evidently
not. This discovery has rather a disquieting effect
upon me. To-night I shall resort to the old trick
of tying my toe to the bed-post.

Nov. 17.—Last night I was again troubled by
most oppressive dreams. Some one seemed to be
moving in the night up and dewn my room, some-
times passing into the front room, and then returning
to stand beside the bed and stare intently down
upon me. I was being watched by this person all
night long. I never actually awoke, though I was
often very near it. I suppose it was a nightmare
from indigestion, for this morning I have one of my
old vile headaches, Yet all my clothes lay about
the floor when I awoke, where they had evidently
been flung (had I so tossed them ?) during the dark
hours, and my trousers trailed over the step into
the front room.

Worse than this, though—I fancied I noticed about
the room in the morning that strange, fetid odour.
Though very faint, its mere suggestion is foul and
nauseating. What in the world can it be, I wonder?
. «. . In future I shall lock my door.

Nov. 26.—I have accomplished a lot of good work
during this past week, and have also managed to
get regular exercise. I have felt well and in an
equable state of mind. Only two things have
occurred to disturb my equanimity. The first is
trivial in itself, and no doubt to be easily explained,

THE LISTENER 33

The upper window where I saw the light on the
night of November 4, with the shadow of a large
head and shoulders upon the blind, is one of the
windows in the square room under the roof. In
reality it has no blind at all!

Here is the other thing. I was coming home last
night in a fresh fall of snow about eleven o’clock,
my umbrella low down over my head. Half way
up the alley, where the snow was wholly untrodden,
I saw a man’s legs in front of me. The umbrella
hid the rest of his figure, but on raising it I saw that
he was tall and broad and was walking, as I was,
towards the door of my house. He could not have
been four feet ahead of me. I had thought the
alley was empty when I entered it, but might of
course have been mistaken very easily.

A sudden gust of wind compelled me to lower the
umbrella, and when I raised it again, not half a
minute later, there was no longer any man to be
seen. With afew more steps I reached the door.
It was closedas usual. I then noticed with a sudden
sensation of dismay that the surface of the freshly
fallen snow was unbroken. Myown footmarks were
the only ones to be seen anywhere, and though I
retraced my way to the point where I had first seen
the man, I could find no slightest impression of any
other boots. Feeling creepy and uncomfortable, I
went upstairs, and was glad to get into bed,

Nov. 28.—With the fastening of my bedroom door
the disturbances ceased. I am convinced that I
walked in my sleep. Probably I untied my toe and

eee

34 THE LISTENER

then tied it up again. The fancied security of the
locked door would alone have been enough to
restore sleep to my troubled spirit and enable me
to rest quietly.

Last night, however, the annoyance was suddenly
renewed in another and more aggressive form. I
woke in the darkness with the impression that
some one was standing outside my bedroom door
listening. As I became more awake the impression
grew into positive knowledge. Though there was
no appreciable sound of moving or breathing, I was
so convinced of the propinquity of a listener that
I crept out of bed and approached the door. As I
did so there came faintly from the next room the
unmistakable sound of some one retreating stealthily
across the floor. Yet, as I heard it, it was neither
the tread of a man nor a regular footstep, but rather,
it seemed to me, a confused sort of crawling, almost
as of some one on his hands and knees.

I unlocked the door in less than a second, and
passed quickly into the front room, and I could feel,
as by the subtlest imaginable vibrations upon my
nerves, that the spot I was standing in had just that
instant been vacated! The Listener had moved ; he
was now behind the other door, standing in the
passage. Yet this door was also closed. I moved
swiftly, and as silently as possible, across the floor,
and turned the handle. A cold rush of air met me
from the passage and sent shiver after shiver down
my back. There was no one in the doorway ; there
was no one on the little landing; there was no one
moving down the staircase. Yet I had been so

THE LISTENER 35

quick that this midnight Listener could not be very
far away, and I felt that if I persevered I should
eventually come face to face with him. And the
courage that came so opportunely to overcome my
nervousness and horror seemed born of the unwel-
come conviction that it was somehow necessary for
my safety as well as my sanity that I should find
this intruder and force his secret from him. For
was it not the intent action of his mind upon my
Own, in concentrated listening, that had awakened
me with such a vivid realisation of his presence ?

Advancing across the narrow landing, | peered
down into the well of the little house, There was
nothing to be seen ; no one was moving in the dark-
ness. How cold the oilcloth was to my bare feet.

I cannot say what it was that suddenly drew my
eyes upwards. I only know that, without apparent
reason, I looked up and saw a person about half-way
up the next turn of the stairs, leaning forward over
the balustrade and staring straight into my face. It
wasaman. He appeared to be clinging to the rail
rather than standing on the stairs. The gloom made
it impossible to see much beyond the general out-
line, but the head and shoulders were seemingly
enormous, and stood sharply silhouetted against the
skylight in the roof immediately above. The idea
flashed into my brain in a moment that I was
looking into the visage of something monstrous.
The huge skull, the mane-like hair, the wide-
humped shoulders, suggested, in a way I did not
pause to analyse, that which was scarcely human ;
and for some seconds, fascinated by horror, I re-

36 : THE LISTENER

turned the gaze and stared into the dark, inscrutable
countenance above me, without knowing exactly
where I was or what I was doing.

Then I realised in quite a new way that I was face
to face with the secret midnight Listener, and 1
steeled myself as best I could for what was about
to come.

The source of the rash courage that came to me
at this awful moment will ever be to me an inex-
plicable mystery. Though shivering with fear, and
my forehead wet with an unholy dew, I resolved to
advance. Twenty questions leaped to my lips:
What are you > What do you want ? Why do you
listen and watch ? Why do you come into my room ?
But none of them found articulate utterance.

I began forthwith to climb the stairs, and with the
first signs of my advance he drew himself back into
the shadows and began to move too. He retreated
as swiftly as 1 advanced. I heard the sound of his
crawling motion a few steps ahead of me, ever main-
taining the same distance. When I reached the
landing he was half-way up the next flight, and when
I was half-way up the next flight he had already
arrived at the top landing. I then heard him open
the door of the little square room under the roof
and go in, Immediately, though the door did not
close after him, the sound of his moving entirely
ceased, Poe

At this moment I longed for a light, or a stick, or
any weapon whatsoever ; but I had none of these
things, and it was impossible to go back. So I
marched steadily up the rest of the stairs, and in less”

THE LISTENER ~~. 39

than a minute found myself standing in the gloom
face to face with the door through which this crea-
ture had just entered.

For a moment I hesitated. The door was
about half way open, and the Listener was stand-
ing evidently in his favourite attitude just be-
hind it—listening. To search through that dark
room for him seemed hopeless; to enter the same
small space where he was seemed horrible. The
very idea filled me with loathing, and I almost de-
cided to turn back.

It is strange at such times how trivial things
impinge on the consciousness with a shock as of
something important and immense. Something—
it may have been a beetle or a mouse—scuttled over
the bare boards behind me. The door moved a
quarter of an inch, closing. My decision came back
with a sudden rush, as it were, and thrusting out a
foot, I kicked the door so that it swung sharply back
to its full extent, and permitted me to walk forward
slowly into the aperture of profound blackness be-
yond, What a queer soft sound my bare feet made
on the boards! How the blood sang and buzzed in
my head! ;

I wasinside. The darkness closed over me, hiding
even the windows. I began to grope my way round
the walls in a thorough search; but in order to
prevent all possibility of the other’s escape, I first of
all closed the door.

There we were, we two, shut in together between
four walls, within a few feet of one another. But
with what, with whom, was I thus momentarily

38 THE LISTENER

imprisoned? A new light flashed suddenly over the
affair with a swift, illuminating brilliance—and I
knew I was a fool, an utter fool! I was wide awake
at last, and the horror was evaporating. My cursed
nerves again; a dream, a nightmare, and the old
result—walking in my sleep. The figure was a
dream-figure. Many a time before had the actors
in my dreams stood before me for some moments
after I was awake. . . . There was a chance match
in my pyjamas’ pocket, and I struck it on the wall.
The room was utterly empty. It held not evena
shadow. I went quickly down to bed, cursing my
wretched nerves and my foolish, vivid dreams. But
as soon as ever I was asleep again, the same uncouth
figure of aman crept back to my bedside, and bend-
ing over me with his immense head close to my ear,
whispered repeatedly in my dreams, “I want your
body ; I want its covering. I’m waiting for it, and
listening always.” Words scarcely less foolish than
the dream.

But I wonder what that queer odour was up in the
square room. I noticed it again, and stronger than
ever before, and it seemed to be also in my bedroom
when I woke this morning.

Nov. 29.— Slowly, as moonbeams rise over a
misty sea in June, the thought is entering my mind
that my nerves and somnambulistic dreams do not
adequately account for the influence this house
exercises upon me. It holds me as with a fine, in-
visible net. I cannot escape if I would. It draws
me, and it means to keep me.

THE LISTENER 39

Nov. 30.—The post this morning brought me a
letter from Aden, forwarded from my old rooms in
Earl's Court. It was from Chapter, my former Trinity
chum, who is on his way home from the East, and
asks for my address. I sent it to him at the hotel
he mentioned, “ to await arrival.”

As I have already said, my windows command a
view of the alley, and I can see an arrival without
difficulty, This morning, while I was busy writing,
the sound of footsteps coming up the alley filled me
with a sense of vague alarm that I could in no way
account for. I went over to the window, and saw
a man standing below waiting for the door to be
opened. His shoulders were broad, his top-hat
glossy, and his overcoat fitted beautifully round the
collar. Allthis I could see, but no more. Presently
the door was opened, and the shock to my nerves
was unmistakable when I heard a man’s voice
ask, “Is Mr. still here ?” mentioning my name.
I could not catch the answer, but it could only
have been in the affirmative, for the man entered
the hall and the door shut to behind him. But
I waited in vain for the sound of his steps on the
stairs. There was no sound of any kind, It
seemed to me so strange that I opened my door
and looked out. No one was anywhere to be
seen. I walked across the narrow landing, and
looked through the window that commands the
whole length of the alley. There was no sign
of a human being, coming or going. The lane
was deserted. Then I deliberately walked down-
stairs into the kitchen, and asked the grey-faced

40 THE LISTENER

landlady if a gentleman had just that minute called
for me.

- The answer, given with an odd, weary sort of
smile, was “ No!”

Dec. 1.—I feel genuinely alarmed and uneasy over
the state of my nerves. Dreams are dreams, but
never before have I had dreams in broad daylight.

I am looking forward very much to Chapter’s
arrival. He is a capital fellow, vigorous, healthy,
with no nerves, and even less imagination ; and he
has £2000 a year into the bargain. Periodically he
makes me offers—the last was to travel round the
world with him as secretary, which was a delicate
way of paying my expenses and giving me some
pocket-money—offers, however, which I invariably
decline. I prefer to keep his friendship. Women
could not come between us ; money might—there-
fore I give it no opportunity. Chapter always
laughed at what he called my “fancies,” being him-
self possessed only of that thin-blooded quality of
imagination which is ever associated with the
prosaic-minded man. Yet, if taunted with this
obvious lack, his wrath is deeply stirred. His psy-
chology is that of the crass materialist—always a
rather funny article. It will afford me genuine relief,
none the less, to hear the cold judgment his mind
will have to pass upon the story of this house as I
shall have it to tell.

Dec. 2.—The strangest part of it all I have not
referred to in this brief diary. Truth to tell, I have

THE LISTENER 41

been afraid to set it down in black and white. I
have kept it in the background of my thoughts, pre-
venting it as far as possible from taking shape. In
spite of my efforts, however, it has continued to
grow stronger.

Now that I come to face the issue squarely, it is
harder to express than I imagined. Like a half-
remembered melody that trips in the head but
vanishes the moment you try to sing it, these thoughts
form a groupin the background of my mind, behind
my mind, as it were, and refuse to come forward.
They are crouching ready to spring, but the actual
leap never takes place.

In these rooms, except when my mind is strongly
concentrated on my own work, I find myself sud-
denly dealing in thoughts and ideas that are not my
own! New, strange conceptions, wholly foreign to
my temperament, are for ever cropping up in my
head. What precisely they are is of no particular
importance. The point is that they are entirely
apart from the channel in which my thoughts have
hitherto been accustomed to flow. Especially they
come when my mind is at rest, unoccupied; when
I’m dreaming over the fire, or sitting with a book
which fails to hold my attention. Then these
thoughts which are not mine spring into life and
make me feel exceedingly uncomfortable. Some-
times they are so strong that I almost feel as if
some one were in the room beside me, thinking
aloud.

Evidently my nerves and liver are shockingly out
of order. I must work harder and take more

42 THE LISTENER

vigorous exercise. The horrid thoughts never come
when my mind is much occupied. But they are
always there—waiting and as it were alive.

What I have attempted to describe above came
first upon me gradually after I had been some days
in the house, and then grew steadily in strength.
The other strange thing has come to me only twice
in all these weeks. It appals me. It is the con-
sciousness of the propinquity of some deadly and
loathsome disease. Itcomes over me like a wave of
fever heat, and then passes off, leaving me cold and
trembling. The air seems for a few seconds to
become tainted. So penetrating and convincing is
the thought of this sickness, that on both occasions
my brain has turned momentarily dizzy, and through
my mind, like flames of white heat, have flashed the
ominous names of all the dangerous illnesses I know.
I can no more explain these visitations than I can
fly, yet I know there is no dreaming about the
clammy skin and palpitating heart which they always
leave as witnesses of their brief visit.

Most strongly of all was I aware of this nearness
of a mortal sickness when, on the night of the 28th,
I went upstairs in pursuit of the listening figure.
When we were shut in together in that little square
room under the roof, I felt that I was face to face
with the actual essence of this invisible and malig-
nant disease. Such a feeling never entered my
heart before, and I pray to God it never may
again.

There! Now I have confessed. I have given
some expression at least to the feelings that so far I

\

THE LISTENER © 43

have been afraid to see in my own writing. For—

since I can no longer deceive myself—the experiences

of that night (28th) were no more a dream than my
daily breakfast is a dream ; and the trivial entry in
this diary by which I sought to explain away an

- occurrence that caused me unutterable horror was

due solely to my desire not to acknowledge in words
what I really felt and believed to be true. The
increase that would have accrued to my horror by
so doing might have been more than I could stand.

Dec. 3.—I wish Chapter would come. My facts
are all ready marshalled, and I can see his cool, grey
eyes fixed incredulously on my face as! relate them :
the knocking at my door, the well-dressed caller, the
light in the upper window and the shadow upon the
blind, the man who preceded me in the snow, the
scattering of my clothes at night, Emily’s arrested
confession, the landlady’s suspicious reticence, the
midnight listener on the stairs,and those awful subse-
quent words in my sleep ; and above all, and hardest
to tell, the presence of the abominable sickness, and
the stream of thoughts and ideas that are not my own.

I can see Chapter’s face, and I can almost hear
his deliberate words, “ You’ve been at the tea
again, and underfeeding, I expect, as usual. Better
see my nerve doctor, and then come with me to

the south of France.” For this fellow, who knows

nothing of disordered liver or high-strung nerves,
goes regularly to a great nerve specialist with the
periodical belief that his nervous system is begin-
ning to decay.

44 THE LISTENER

Dec. 5.—Ever since the incident of the Listener, I
have kepta night-light burning in my bedroom, and
my sleep has been undisturbed. Last night, however,
I was subjected to a far worse annoyance. I woke
suddenly, and saw a man in front of the dressing-
table regarding himself in the mirror. The door
was locked, as usual. I knew at once it was the
Listener, and the blood turned to ice in my veins.
Such a wave of horror and dread swept over me that -
it seemed to turn me rigid in the bed, and I could
neither move nor speak. I noted, however, that
the odour I so abhorred was strong in the room.

The man seemed to be tall and broad. He was
stooping forward over the mirror. His back was
turned to me, but in the glass I saw the reflection of
a huge head and face illumined fitfully by the
flicker of the night-light. The spectral grey of very
early morning stealing in round the edges of the
curtains lent an additional horror to the picture, for
it fell upon hair that was tawny and mane-like,
hanging loosely about a face whose swollen, rugose
features bore the once seen never forgotten leonine
expression of—— I dare not write down that
awful word. But, by way of corroborative proof, I
saw in the faint mingling of the two lights that
there were several bronze-coloured blotches on the
cheeks which the man was evidently examining with
great care in the glass. The lips were pale and very
thick and large. One hand I could not see, but the
other rested on the ivory back of my hair-brush. Its
muscles were strangely contracted, the fingers thin
to emaciation, the back of the hand closely puckered

THE LISTENER 45

up. Itwaslikea big grey spider crouching to spring,
or the claw of a great bird,

_ The full realisation that I was alone in the room
with this nameless creature, almost within arm’s
reach of him, overcame me to such a degree that,
when he suddenly turned and regarded me with
small beady eyes, wholly out of proportion to the
grandeur of their massive setting, I sat bolt upright
in bed, uttered a loud cry, and then fell back in a
dead swoon of terror upon the bed.

Dec. 6.—. . . When I came to this morning, the
first thing I noticed was that my clothes were strewn
all over the floor. :.. I find it difficult to put my
thoughts together, and have sudden accesses of
violent trembling. I determined that I would go at
once to Chapter’s hotel and find out when he is
expected. I cannot refer to what happened in the
night; it is too awful, and I have to keep my
thoughts rigorously away from it. I feel light-
headed and queer, couldn’t eat any breakfast, and
have twice vomited with blood. While dressing
to go out, a hansom rattled up noisily over the
cobbles, and a minute later the door opened, and to
my great joy in walked the very subject of my
thoughts.

The sight of his strong face and quiet eyes had an
immediate effect upon me, and I grew calmer again.
His very handshake was a sort of tonic. But, as I
listened eagerly to the deep tones of his reassuring
voice, and the visions of the night time paled alittle,
I began to realise how very hard it was going to be

46 THE LISTENER

to tell him my wild, intangible tale. Some men
radiate an animal vigour that destroys the delicate
woof of a vision and effectually prevents its recon-
struction. Chapter was one of these men.

We talked of incidents that had filled the interval
since we last met, and he told me something of his
travels. He talked and I listened. But, so full was
I of the horrid thing I had to tell, that I made a
poor listener. I was for ever watching my oppor-
tunity to leap in and explode it all under his nose.

Before very long, however, it was borne in upon
me that he too was merely talking for time. He
too held something of importance in the background
of his mind, something too weighty to let fall till the
right moment presented itself. So that during the
whole of the first half-hour we were both waiting
for the psychological moment in which properly to
release our respective bombs; and the intensity of
our minds’ action set up opposing forces that
merely sufficed to hold one another in check—and
nothing more. As soonas I realised this, therefore,
I resolved to yield. I renounced for the time my
purpose of telling my story, and had the satisfaction
of seeing that his mind, released from the restraint
of my own, at once began to make preparations for
the discharge of its momentous burden. The talk
grew less and less magnetic ; the interest waned;
the descriptions of his travels became less alive.
There were pauses between his sentences. Presently
he repeated himself. His words clothed no living
thoughts. The pauses grew longer. Then the
interest dwindled altogether and went out like a

THE LISTENER 47

candle in the wind. His. voice ceased, and he
looked up squarely into my face with serious and
anxious eyes.

The psychological moment had come at last!

“T say ”’ he began, and then stopped short.

I made an unconscious gesture of encouragement,
but said no word. I dreaded the impending dis-
closure exceedingly. A dark shadow seemed to
precede it.

“TI say,” he blurted out at last, “ what in the world
made you ever come to this place—to these rooms,
I mean ?”

“They're cheap, for one thing,” I began, “and
central and——.”

“They're too cheap,” he interrupted. “ Didn’t
you ask what made ’em so cheap ?”’

“Tt never occurred to me at the time.”

There was a pause in which he avoided my eyes.

“For God’s sake, go on, man, and tell it!” I
cried, for the suspense was getting more than I
could stand in my nervous condition.

“This was where Blount lived so long,” he said
quietly, “and where he—died. You know, in the
- old days I often used to come here and see him,
and do what I could to alleviate his iy Fle
stuck fast again.

“Well!” I said with a great effort. ‘Please go
on—faster.”

“But,” Chapter went on, turning his face to the
window with a perceptible shiver, “he finally got so
terrible I simply couldn’t stand it, though I always
thought I could stand anything. It got on my

aR THE LISTENER

nerves and made me dream, and haunted me day
and night.”

I stared at him, and said nothing. I had never
heard of Blount in my life, and didn’t know what
he was talking about. But, all the same, I was
trembling, and my mouth had become strangely
dry.

“This is the first time I’ve been back here since,”
he said almost in a whisper, “and, ’pon my word,
it gives me the creeps. I swear it isn’t fit fora man
to live in. I never saw you look so bad, old man.”

‘“‘T’ve got it for a year,” I jerked out, with a forced
laugh; “signed the lease and all. I thought it was
rather a bargain.”

Chapter shuddered, and buttoned his overcoat up
to his neck. Then he spoke in a low voice, looking
occasionally behind him as though he thought
some one was listening. I too could have sworn
some one else was in the room with us.

“ He did it himself, you know, and no one blamed
him a bit ; his sufferings were awful. For the last
two years he used to wear a veil when he went out,
and even then it was always in a closed carriage.
Even the attendant who had nursed him for so long
was at length obliged to leave. The extremities of
both the lower limbs were gone, dropped off, and
he moved about the ground on all fours with a sort
of crawling motion. The odour, too, was——”

I was obliged to interrupt him here. I could
hear no more details of that sort. My skin was
moist, I felt hot and cold by turns, for at last I
was beginning to understand,

THE LISTENER 49

“Poor devil,” Chapter went on; “I used to keep
my eyes closed as much as possible. He always
begged to be allowed to take his veil off, and asked
if 1 minded very much. I used to stand by the
open window. He never touched me, though. He
rented the whole house. Nothing would induce
him to leave it.”

“ Did he occupy—these very rooms ?”

“No. He had the little room on the top floor,
the square one just under the roof. He preferred
it because it was dark. These rooms were too near
the ground, and he was afraid people might see
him through the windows. A crowd had been
known to follow him up to the very door, and then
stand below the windows in the hope of catching a
glimpse of his face.”

“ But there were hospitals.”

“ He wouldn’t go near one, and they didn’t like
to force him. You know, they say it’s not con-
tagious, so there was nothing to prevent his staying
here if he wanted to. He spent all his time reading
medical books, about drugs and so on. His head
and face were something appalling, just like a
lion’s.” |

I held up my hand to arrest further description.

“ He was a burden to the world, and he knew it,
One night I suppose he realised it too keenly to
wish to live. He had the free use of drugs—and in
the morning he was found dead on the floor. Two
years ago, that was, and they said then he had still
several years to live.”

“Then, in Heaven’s name!” I cried, unable to

D

50 THE LISTENER

bear the suspense any longer, “ tell me what it was
he had, and be quick about it.”

“TI thought you knew!” he exclaimed, with
genuine surprise. “I thought you knew !”

He leaned forward and our eyes met. In a
scarcely audible whisper I caught the words his lips
seemed almost afraid to utter;

“He was a leper 1”

MAX HENSIG
BACTERIOLOGIST AND MURDERER

A STORY OF NEW YORK

I

BESIDES the departmental men on the New York
Vulture, there were about twenty reporters for general
duty, and Williams had worked his way up till he
stood easily among the first half-dozen; for, in
addition to being accurate and painstaking, he was
able to bring to his reports of common things that
touch of imagination and humour which just lifted
them out of the rut of mere faithful recording.
Moreover, the city editor (anglice news editor)
appreciated his powers, and always tried to give him
assignments that did himself and the paper credit,
and he was justified nowin expecting to be relieved
of the hack jobs that were usually allotted to new
men.

He was therefore puzzled and a little disappointed
one morning as he saw his inferiors summoned one
after another to the news desk to receive the best
assignments of the day, and when at length his turn
came, and the city editor asked him to cover the

52 MAX HENSIG

“ Hensig story,” he gave a little start of vexation
that almost betrayed him into asking what the devil
the “ Hensig story” was. For it is the duty of every
morning newspaper man—in New York at least—to
have made himself familiar with all the news of the
day before he shows himself at the office, and
though Williams had already done this, he could not
recall either the name or the story.

“You can run to a hundred or a hundred and
fifty, Mr. Williams. Cover the trial thoroughly, and
get good interviews with Hensig and the lawyers.
There'll be no night assignment for you till the case
is over.”

Williams was going to ask if there were any
private “tips” from the District Attorney’s office
but the editor was already speaking with Weekes,
who wrote the daily “ weather story,” and he went
back slowly to his desk, angry and disappointed, to
read up the Hensig case and lay his plans for the
day accordingly. At any rate, he reflected, it
looked like ‘a soft job,” and as there was to be no
second assignment for him that night, he would get
off by eight o’clock, and be able to dine and sleep
for once like a civilised man. And that was some-
thing.

It took him some time, however, to discover that
the Hensig case was only a murder story. And this
increased his disgust. It was tucked away in the
corners of most of the papers, and little importance
was attached to it. A murder trial is not first-class
news unless there are very special features connected
with it, and Williams had already covered scores of

MAX HENSIG 53

them. There was a heavy sameness about them
that made it difficult to report them interestingly,
and as a rule they were left to the tender mercies of
the “flimsy” men—the Press Associations—and no
paper sent a special man unless the case was dis-
tinctly out of the usual. Moreover, a hundred
and fifty meant a column and a half, and Williams,
not being a space man, earned the same money
whether he wrote a stickful or a page; so that he
felt doubly aggrieved, and walked out into the
sunny open spaces opposite Newspaper Row
heaving a deep sigh and cursing the boredom of
his trade.

Max Hensig, he found, was a German doctor
accused of murdering his second wife by injecting
arsenic. The woman had been buried several weeks
when the suspicious relatives got the body exhumed,
and a quantity of the poison had been found in her.
Williams recalled something about the arrest, now
he came to think of it; but he felt no special
interest in it, for ordinary murder trials were no
longer his legitimate work, and he scorned them.
At first, of course, they had thrilled him horribly,
and some of his interviews with the prisoners,
especially just before execution, had deeply im-
-pressed his imagination and kept him awake o’
nights. Even now he could not enter the gloomy
Tombs Prison, or cross the Bridge of Sighs leading
from it to the courts, without experiencing a real
sensation, for its huge Egyptian columns and mas-
sive walls closed round him like death; and the
first time he walked down Murderers’ Row, and

~

64 MAX HENSIG

came in view of the cell doors, his throat was dry,
and he had almost turned and run out of the
building.

The first time, too, that he covered the trial of a
negro and listened to the man’s hysterical speech
before sentence was pronounced, he was absorbed
with interest, and his heart leaped. The wild
appeals to the Deity, the long invented words, the
ghastly pallor under the black skin, the rolling eyes,
and the torrential sentences all seemed to him to
be something tremendous to describe for his sensa-
tional sheet ; and the stickful that was eventually
printed—written by the flimsy man too—had given
him quite a new standard of the relative value of
news and of the quality of the satiated public palate.
He had reported the trials of a Chinaman, stolid as
wood ; of an Italian who had been too quick with
his knife; and of a farm girl who had done both
her parents to death in their beds, entering their
room stark naked, so that no stains should betray
her; and at the beginning these things haunted
him for days.

But that was all months ago, when he first came
to New York. Since then his work had been
steadily in the criminal courts, and he had grown
a second skin. An execution in the electric chair at
Sing Sing could still unnerve him somewhat, but
mere murder no longer thrilled or excited him, and
he could be thoroughly depended on to write a
good “murder story”—an account that his paper
could print without blue pencil.

Accordingly he entered the Tombs Prison with

MAX HENSIG Bs

nothing stronger than the feeling of vague oppres-
sion that gloomy structure always stirred in him,
and certainly with no particular emotion connected
with the prisoner he was about to interview ; and
when he reached the second iron door, where a
warder peered at him through a small grating, he
heard a voice behind him, and turned to find the
Chronicle man at his heels.

“Hullo, Senator! What good trail are you
following down here?” he cried, for the other got
no small assignments, and never had less than a
column on the Chronicle front page at space rates.

“Same as you, I guess—Hensig,” was the reply.

“ But there’s no space in Hensig,” said Williams
with surprise. ‘ Are you back on salary again ?”

“ Not much,” laughed the Senator—no one knew
his real name, but he was always called Senator.
“ But Hensig’s good fortwo hundred easy. There’s
a whole list of murders behind him, we hear, and
this is the first time he’s been caught.”

“ Poison 2?”

The Senator nodded in reply, turning to ask the
warder some question about another case, and
Williams waited for him in the corridor, impatiently
rather, for he loathed the musty prison odour. He
watched the Senator as he talked, and was distinctly
glad he had come. They were good friends: he
had helped Williams when he first joined the small
army of newspaper men and was not much wel-
comed, being an Englishman. Common origin and
good-heartedness mixed themselves delightfully in
his face, and he always made Williams think of a.

56 MAX HENSIG

friendly, honest cart-horse—stolid, strong, with big
and simple emotions.

“Get a hustle on, Senator,” he said at length
impatiently.

The two reporters followed the warder down the
flagged corridor, past a row of dark cells, each with
its occupant, until the man, swinging his keys in the
direction indicated, stopped and pointed :

“Here’s your gentleman,” he said, and then
moved on down the corridor, leaving them staring
through the bars at a tall, slim young man, pacing
to and fro. He had flaxen hair and very bright blue
eyes ; his skin was white, and his face wore so open
and innocent an expression that one would have
said he could not twist a kitten’s tail without
wincing.

“From the Chronicle and Vulture,” explained
Williams, by way of introduction, and the talk at
once began in the usual way.

The man in the cell ceased his restless pacing up
and down, and stopped opposite the bars to examine
them. He stared straight into Williams’s eyes for a
moment, and the reporter noted a very different
expression from the one he had firstseen. It actually
made him shift his position and stand a little to one
side. But the movement was wholly instinctive.
He could not have explained why he did it.

“Guess you vish me to say I did it, and then
egsplain to you how I did it,” the young doctor said
coolly, with a marked German accent. ‘But I haf
no copy to gif you shust now. You see at the trial
it is nothing but spite—and shealosy of another

MAX HENSIG 87
woman. Ilofed myvife. I vould nothaf gilled her
for anything in the vorld-——”

“Oh, of course, of course, Dr. Hensig,” broke in
the Senator, who was more experienced in the ways
of difficult interviewing. “We quite understand
that. But, you know, in New York the newspapers
try aman as much as the courts, and we thought
you might like to make a statement to the public
which we should be very glad to print for you. It
may help your case e

“Nothing can help my case in this tamned
country where shustice is to be pought mit tollars !”
cried the prisoner, with a sudden anger and an
expression of face still further belying the first one;
“nothing except a lot of money. But I tell you
now two things you may write for your public:
One is, no motive can be shown for the murder,
because I lofed Zinka and vished her to live alvays.
And the other is——-” He stopped a moment and
stared steadily at Williams making shorthand notes
—“that with my knowledge—my egceptional know-
ledge—of poisons and pacteriology I could have
_ done it in a dozen ways without pumping arsenic
into her body. That is a fool’s way of killing. Itis
clumsy and childish and sure of discofery! See?”

He turned away, as though to signify that the
interview was over, and sat down on his wooden
bench.

“Seems to have taken a fancy to you,” laughed
the Senator, as they went off to get further inter-
views with the lawyers. “ He never looked at me

once.”

58 MAX HENSIG

“He’s got a bad face—the face of a devil. I don’t
feel complimented,”.said Williams shortly. “Id
hate to be in his power.”

“Same here,” returned the other. ‘ Let’s go into
Silver Dollars and wash the dirty taste out.”

So, after the custom of reporters, they made their
way up the Bowery and wentinto a saloon that had
gained a certain degree of fame because the Tam-
many owner had let a silver dollar into each stone
of the floor. Here they washed away most of the
“dirty taste” left by the Tombs atmosphere and
Hensig, and then went on to Steve Brodie’s, another
saloon a little higher up the same street.

“There'll be others there,” said the Senator,
meaning drinks as well as reporters, and Williams,
still thinking over their interview, silently agreed.

Brodie was a character ; there was always some-
thing lively going on in his place. He had the
reputation of having once jumped from the Brooklyn
Bridge and reached the water alive. No one
could actually deny it, and no one could prove
that it really happened; and anyhow, he had
enough imagination and personality to make the
myth live and to sell much bad liquor on the
strength of it. The walls of his saloon were plas-
tered with lurid oil-paintings of the bridge, the
height enormously magnified, and Steve’s body in
mid-air, an expression of a happy puppy on his
face.

Here, as expected, they found “ Whitey” Fife, of
the Recorder, and Galusha Owen, of the World.
“Whitey,” as his nickname implied, was an albino,

MAX HENSIG 59

and clever. He wrote the daily “weather story”
for his paper, and the way he spun a column out of
rain, wind, and temperature was the envy of every
one except the Weather Clerk, who objected to
being described as ‘‘Farmer Dunne, cleaning his
rat-tail file,’ and to having his dignified office re-
ferred to in the public press as “a down-country
farm.” But the public liked it, and laughed, and
“ Whitey” was never really spiteful.

Owen, too, when sober, was a good man who had
long passed the rubicon of hack assignments. Yet
both these men were also on the Hensig story.
And Williams, who had already taken an instinctive
dislike to the case, was sorry to see this, for it meant
frequent interviewing and the possession, more or
less, of his mind and imagination. Clearly, he
would have much to do with this German doctor.
Already, even at this stage, he began to hate him.

The four reporters spent an hour drinking and
talking. They fell at length to discussing the last
time they had chanced to meet on the same assign-
ment—a private lunatic asylum owned by an incom-
petent quack without a licence, and where most of
the inmates, not mad in the first instance, and all
heavily paid for by relatives who wished them out
of the way, had gone mad from ill-treatment. The
place had been surrounded before dawn by the
Board of Health officers, and the quasi-doctor
arrested as he opened his front door. It wasa
splendid newspaper “story,” of course.

“My space bill ran to sixty dollars a day for
nearly a week,” said Whitey Fife thickly, and the

60 MAX HENSIG

others laughed, because Whitey wrote most of his
stuff by cribbing it from the evening papers.

“A dead cinch,” said Galusha Owen, his dirty
flannel collar poking up through his long hair
almost to his ears, “I ‘faked’ the whole of the
second day without going down there at all.”

He pledged Whitey for the tenth time that morn-
ing, and the albino leered happily across the table
at him, and passed him a thick compliment before
emptying his glass.

“ Hensig’s going to be good, too,” broke in the
Senator, ordering a round of gin-fizzes, and Williams
gave a little start of annoyance to hear the name
brought up again. ‘ He'll make good stuff at the
trial. I never sawa cooler hand. You should’ve
heard him talk about poisons and bacteriology, and
boasting he could kill in a dozen ways without fear
of being caught. I guess he was telling the truth
right enough !”

“That so?” cried Galusha and Whitey in the
same breath, not having done a stroke of work so |
far on the case.

“Rundownto the Tombsh angetaninerview,”added
Whitey, turning with a sudden burst of enthusiasm
to his companion. His white eyebrows and pink
eyes fairly shone against the purple of his tipsy face.

“No, no,” cried the Senator ; “ don’t spoil a good
story. You're both as full as ticks. I’ll match with
Williams which of us goes. Hensig knows us
already, and we'll all ‘give up’ in this story right
along. No ‘ beats.’”

So they decided to divide news till the case was

MAX HENSIG eo OF

finished, and to keep no exclusive items to them-
selves ; and Williams, having lost the toss, swallowed
his gin-fizz and went back to the Tombs to get a
further talk with the prisoner on his knowledge of
expert poisoning and bacteriology.

Meanwhile his thoughts were very busy else-
where. He had taken no part in the noisy con-
versation in the bar-room, because something lay at
the back of his mind, bothering him, and claiming
attention with great persistence. Something was at
work in his deeper consciousness, something that
had impressed him with a vague sense of unpleasant-
ness and nascent fear, reaching below that second
skin he had grown.

And, as he walked slowly through the malodorous
slum streets that lay between the Bowery and the
Tombs, dodging the pullers-in outside the Jew
clothing stores, and nibbling at a bag of pea-nuts he
caught up off an Italian push-cart en route, this
“something ” rose a little higher out of its obscurity,
and began to play with the roots of the ideas float-
ing higgledy-piggledy on the surface of his mind.
He thought he knew what it was, but could not
make quite sure. From the roots of his thoughts it
rose a little higher, so that he clearly felt it as some-
thing disagreeable. Then, with a sudden rush, it
came to the surface, and poked its face before him
so that he fully recognised it.

The blond visage of Dr. Max Hensig rose before
him, cool, smiling, and implacable.

Somehow, he had expected it would prove to be
Hensig—this unpleasant thought that was troubling

62 MAX HENSIG

him. He was not really surprised to have labelled
it, because the man’s personality had made an un-
welcome impression upon him at the very start.
He stopped nervously in the street, and looked
round. He did not expect to see anything out of
the way, or to find that he was being followed. It
was not that exactly. Theact of turning was merely
the outward expression of a sudden inner discom-
fort, and a man with better nerves, or nerves more
under control, would not have turned at all.

But what caused this tremor of the nerves?
Williams probed and searched within himself. It
came, he felt, from some part of his inner being he
did not understand ; there had been an intrusion,
an incongruous intrusion, into the stream of his
normal consciousness. Messages from this region
always gave him pause ; and in this particular case
ne saw no reason why he should think specially of
Dr. Hensig with alarm—this light-haired stripling
with blue eyesand drooping moustache. The faces
of other murderers had haunted him once or twice
because they were more than ordinarily bad, or
because their case possessed unusual features of
horror. But there was nothing so very much out
of the way about Hensig—at least, if there was, the
reporter could not seize and analyse it. There
seemed no adequate reason to explain his emotion. -
Certainly, it had nothing to do with the fact that he
was merely a murderer, for that stirred no thrill in
him at all, except a kind of pity, and a wonder how
the man would meet his execution. It must, he
argued, be something to do with the personality of

MAX HENSIG 63

the man, apart from any particular deed or charac-
teristic.

Puzzled, and still a little nervous, he stood in the
road, hesitating. In front of him the dark walls of
the Tombs rose in massive steps of granite. Over-
head white summer clouds sailed across a deep
blue sky; the wind sang cheerfully among the
wires and chimney-pots, making him think of fields
and trees; and down the street surged the usual
cosmopolitan New York crowd of laughing Italians,
surly negroes, Hebrews chattering Yiddish, tough-
looking hooligans with that fighting lurch of the
shoulders peculiar to New York roughs, Chinamen,
taking little steps like boys—and every other sort of
nondescript imaginable. It was early June, and
there were faint odours of the sea and of sea-beaches
in the air. Williams caught himself shivering a
little with delight at the sight of the sky and scent
of the wind.

Then he looked back at the great prison, rightly
named the Tombs, and the sudden change of
thought from the fields to the cells, from life to
death, somehow landed him straight into the dis-
covery of what caused this attack of nervousness :

Hensig was no ordinary murderer! That was it.
There was something quite out of the ordinary about
him, The man was a horror, pure and simple, stand-
ing apart from normal humanity. The knowledge of
this rushed over him like a revelation, bringing
unalterable conviction in its train. Something of
it had reached him in that first brief interview,
but without explaining itself sufficiently to be recog.

64 MAX HENSIG

nised, and since then it had been working in
his system, like a poison,-and was now causing
a disturbance, not having been assimilated. A
quicker temperament would have labelled it long
before.

Now, Williams knew well that he drank too
much, and had more than a passing acquaintance
with drugs ; his nerves were shaky at the best of
times. His life on the newspapers afforded no
opportunity of cultivating pleasant social relations,
but brought him all the time into contact with the
seamy side of life—the criminal, the abnormal, the
unwholesome in human nature. He knew, too,
that strange thoughts, idées fixes and what not,
grew readily in such a soil as this, and, not wanting
these, he had formed a habit—peculiar to himself—
of deliberately sweeping his mind clean once a
week of all that had haunted, obsessed, or teased
him, of the horrible or unclean, during his work ;
and his eighth day, his holiday, he invariably spent
in the woods, walking, building fires, cooking a meal
in the open, and getting all the country air and the
exercise he possibly could. He had in this way
kept his mind free from many unpleasant pictures
that might otherwise have lodged there abidingly,
and the habit of thus cleansing his imagination
had proved more than once of real value to him.

So now he laughed to himself, and turned on those
whizzing brooms of his, trying to forget these first
impressions of Hensig, and simply going in, as he
did a hundred other times, to get an ordinary inter-
view with an ordinary prisoner, This habit, being

MAX HENSIG 6s

nothing more nor less than the practice of sugges-
tion, was more successful sometimes than others.
This time—since fear is less susceptible to sugges-
tion than other emotions—it was less so.

Williams got his interview, and came away fairly
creeping with horror. Hensig was all that he had
felt, and more besides. He belonged, the reporter
felt convinced, to that rare type of deliberate
murderer, cold-blooded and calculating, who kills
for a song, delights in killing, and gives its whole
intellect to the consideration of each detail, glorying
in evading detection and revelling in the notoriety
of the trial, if caught. At first he had answered
reluctantly, but as Williams plied his questions
intelligently, the young doctor warmed up and
became enthusiastic with a sort of cold intellectual
enthusiasm, till at last he held forth like a lecturer,
pacing his cell, gesticulating, explaining with admir-
able exposition how easy murder could be to a man
who knew his business.

And he did know his business! No man, in
these days of inquests and post-mortem examination,
would inject poisons that might be found weeks
afterwards in the viscera of the victim. No man
who knew his business !

““What is more easy,” he said, holding the bars
with his long white fingers and gazing into the
reporter’s eyes, “than to take a disease germ [‘cherm’
he pronounced it] of typhus, plague, or any cherm
you blease, and make so virulent a culture that no
medicine in the vorld could counteract it ; a really
powerful microbe—and then scratch the skin of your

E

66 MAX HENSIG

victim with a pin? And who could drace it to you,
or accuse you of murder ?”

Williams, as he watched and heard, was glad
the bars were between them; but, even so, some-
thing invisible seemed to pass from the prisoner’s
atmosphere and lay an icy finger on his heart. He
had come into contact with every possible kind of
crime and criminal, and had interviewed scores of
men who, for jealousy, greed, passion, or other
comprehensible emotion, had killed and paid the
penalty of killing. He understood that. Any man
with strong passions was a potential killer. But
never before had he met a man who in cold blood,
deliberately, under no emotion greater than bore-
dom, would destroy a human life and then boast of
his ability to do it. Yet this, he felt sure, was what
Hensig had done, and what his vile words shadowed
forth and betrayed. Here was something outside
humanity, something terrible, monstrous; and it
made him shudder. This young doctor, he felt, was
a fiend incarnate, a man who thought less of human
life than of the lives of flies in summer, and who
would kill with as steady a hand and cool a brainas
though he were performing a common operation in
the hospital.

Thus the reporter left the prison gates with a vivid
impression in his mind, though exactly how his con-
clusion was reached was more than he could tell.
This time the mental brooms failed to act. The
horror of it remained.

On the way out into the street he ran against
Policeman Dowling of the ninth precinct, with

MAX HENSIG 67

whom he had been fast friends since the day he
wrote a glowing account of Dowling’s capture of a
“ greengoods-man,” when Dowling had been so
drunk that he nearly lost his prisoner altogether.
The policeman had never forgotten the good turn;
it had promoted him to plain clothes; and he was
always ready to give the reporter any news he
had.

“Know of anything good to-day ?” he asked by
way of habit.

“ Bet your bottom dollar I do,” replied the coarse-
faced Irish policeman; ‘one of the best,too. I’ve
got Hensig!”

Dowling spoke with eae and affection. He was
_ mighty pleased, too, because his name would be in
the paper every day for a week or more, and a big
case helped the chances of promotion.

Williams cursed inwardly. Apparently there was
no escape from this man Hensig.

“ Not much of a case, is it?” he asked.

“Tt’s a jim dandy, that’s what it is,” replied the
other, alittle offended. “ Hensig may miss the Chair
because the evidence is weak, but he’s the worst I’ve
ever met. Why, he’d poison you as soon as spit in
your eye, and if he’s got a heart at all he keeps it on
ice.”

_ What makes you think that ?”

' “Oh, they talk pretty freely to us sometimes,” the
policeman said, with a significant wink. “Can’t be
used against them at the trial, and it kind o’ relieves
their mind, I guess. But I’d just as soon not have
heard most of what that guy told me—see? Come

68 MAX HENSIG

in,” he added, looking round _cautiously ; “I'l set
‘em up and tell you a bit.”

Williams entered the side-door of a saloon with
him, but not too willingly.

“A glarss of Scotch for the Englishman,” ordered
the officer facetiously, “and I’ll take a horse’s
collar with a dash of peach bitters in it—just what
you'd notice, no more.” He flung down a half-
dollar, and the bar-tender winked and pushed it back
to him across the counter.

‘“What’s yours, Mike ?” he asked him.

“T’ll take a cigar,” said the bar-tender, pocketing
the proffered dime and putting a cheap cigar in his
waistcoat pocket, and then moving off to allow the
two men elbow-room to talk in.

They talked in low voices with heads close
together for fifteen minutes, and then the reporter
set up another round of drinks. The bar-tender
took his money. Then they talked a bit longer,
Williams rather white about about the gills and the
policeman very much in earnest.

“The boys are waiting for me up at Brodie’s,”
said Williams at length. ‘I must be off.”

“That’s so,” said Dowling, straightening up.
“We'll just liquor up again to show there’s no ill-
feeling. And mind you see me every morning before
the case is called. Trial begins to-morrow.”

They swallowed their drinks, and again the bar-
tender took a ten-cent piece and pocketed a cheap
cigar.

“ Don't print what I’ve told you, and don’t give
it up to the other reporters,” said Dowling as they

s

MAX HENSIG 69
separated. “ Andif you want confirmation jest take
the cars and run down to Amityville, Long Island,
and you'll find what I’ve said is O.K. every time.”

Williams went back to Steve Brodie’s, his thoughts
whizzing about him like bees ina swarm. What he
had heard increased tenfold his horror of the man.
Of course, Dowling may have lied or exaggerated,
but he thought not. It was probably all true, and
the newspaper offices knew something about it when
they sent good men to cover the case. Williams
wished to Heaven he had nothing to do with the
thing ; but meanwhile he could not write what he
had heard, and all the other reporters wanted was the
result of his interview. That was good for half a
column, even expurgated.,

He found the Senator in the middle of a story to
Galusha, while Whitey Fife was knocking cocktail
glasses off the edge of the table and catching them
just before they reached the floor, pretending they
were Steve Brodie jumping from the Brooklyn Bridge.
He had promised to set up the drinks for the whole
bar if he missed, and just as Williams entered a glass

smashed to atoms on the stones, and a roar of laughter
went up from the room. Five or six men moved up
to the bar and took their liquor, Williams included,
and soon after Whitey and Galusha went off to get
some lunch and sober up, having first arranged to
meet Williams later in the evening and get the
“story” from him.

“Get much?” asked the Senator.

“ More than I care about,” replied the other, and
then told his friend the story.

70 MAX HENSIG

The Senator listened with intense interest, making
occasional notes from time to time, and asking a few
questions. Then, when Williams had finished, he
said quietly :

“T guess Dowling’s right. Let’s jump on a car
and go down to Amityville, and see what they think
about hin down there.”

Amityville was a scattered village some twenty
miles away on Long Island, where Dr. Hensig had
lived and practised for the last year or two, and
where Mrs. Hensig No. 2 had come to her suspicious
death. The neighbours would be sure to have plenty
to say, and though it might not prove of great value,
it would be certainly interesting. So the two re-
porters went down there, and interviewed any one
and every one they could find, from the man in the
drug-store to the parson and the undertaker, and
the stories they heard would fill a book.

“Good stuff,” said the Senator, as they journeyed
back to New York on the steamer, “ but nothing we
can use, I guess.” His face was very grave, and he
seemed troubled in his mind.

“Nothing the District Attorney can use either at
at the trial,” observed Williams.

“It’s simply a devil—not a man at all,” the other
continued, as if talking to himself. “ Utterly un-
moral! I swear I’ll make McSweater put me on
another job.”

For the stories they had heard showed Dr. Hensig
as a man who openly boasted that he could kill
without detection ; that no enemy of his lived long;
that, as a doctor, he had, or ought to have, the right

MAX HENSIG 71

over life and death; and that if a person was a
nuisance, or a trouble to him, there was no reason
he should not put them away, provided he did it
without rousing suspicion. Of course he had not
shouted these views aloud in the market-place, but
he had let people know that he held them, and held
them seriously. They had fallen from him in con-
versation, in unguarded moments, and were clearly
the natural expression of his mind and views. And
many people in the village evidently had no doubt
that he had put them into practice more than once.

“There’s nothing to give up to Whitey or Galusha,
though,” said the Senator decisively, “and there’s
hardly anything we can use in our story.”

“JT don’t think I should care to use it anyhow,”
Williams said, with rather a forced laugh.

The Senator looked round sharply by way of
question.

“Hensig may be acquitted and get out,” added
Williams.

“Same here. I guess you're dead right,” he said
slowly, and then added more cheerfully, “ Let’s go
and have dinner in Chinatown, and write our copy
together.”

So they went down Pell Street, and turned up
some dark wooden stairs into a Chinese restaurant,
smelling strongly of opium and of cooking not
Western. Here at a little table on the sanded floor
they ordered chou chop suey and chou om dong in
brown bowls, and washed it down with frequent
doses of the fiery white whisky, and then moved
into a corner and began to cover their paper with

~

92 MAX HENSIG

pencil writing for the consumption of the great
American public in the morning.

“There’s not much:to choose between Hensig
and that,” said the Senator, as one of the degraded
white women who frequent Chinatown entered the
room and sat down at an empty table to order whisky.
For, with four thousand Chinamen in the quarter,
there is nota single Chinese woman.

_ “All the difference in the world,” replied Williams,
following his glance across the smoky room. ‘ She’s
been decent once, and may be again some day, but
that damned doctor has never been anything but
what he is—a soulless, intellectual devil. He doesn’t
belong to humanity at all. I’ve gota horrid idea
that——”

“How do you spell ‘ bacteriology,’ two 7’s or one?”
asked the Senator, going on with his scrawly writing
of a story that would be read with interest by thou-
sands next day.

“Two 7s and one k,” laughed the other. And
they wrote on for another hour, and then went to
turn it in to their respective offices in Park Row.

iI

THE trial of Max Hensig lasted two weeks, for his
relations supplied money, and he got good lawyers
and all manner of delays. From a newspaper point
of view it fell utterly flat, and before the end of the
fourth day most of the papers had shunted their big
men on to other jobs more worthy of their
powers.

From Williams’s point of view, however, it did not
fall flat, and he was kept on it tillthe end. A reporter,
of course, has no right to indulge in editorial
remarks, especially when a case is still sub judice,
but in New York journalism and the dignity of the
law have a standard all their own, and into his daily
reports there crept the distinct flavour of his own
conclusions. Now that new men, with whom he had
no agreement to “ give up,” were covering the story
for the other papers, he felt free to use any special
knowledge in his possession, and a good deal of what
he had heard at Amityville and from officer Dowling
somehow managed to creep into his writing. Some-
thing of the horror and loathing he felt for this
doctor also betrayed itself, more by inference than
actual statement, and no one who read his daily
column could come to any other conclusion than

4 MAX HENSIG

that Hensig was a calculating, cool-headed murderer
of the most dangerous type.

This was a little awkward for the reporter, because
it was his duty every morning to interview the pri-
soner in his cell, and get his views on the conduct of
the case in general and on his chances of escaping
the Chair in particular.

_ Yet Hensig showed no embarrassment. All the
newspapers were supplied to him, and he evidently
read every word that Williams wrote. He must have

known what the reporter thought about him, at least
so far as his guilt or innocence was concerned, but
he expressed no opinion as to the fairness of the
articles, and talked freely of his chances of ultimate
escape. The very way in which he glorified in being
the central figure of a matter that bulked so large in
the public eye seemed to the reporter an additional
proof of the man’s perversity. His vanity was
immense. He made most careful toilets, appearing
every day in a clean shirt and a new tie, and never
wearing the same suit on two consecutive days. He
noted the descriptions of his personal appearance in
the Press, and was quite offended if his clothes and
bearing in court were not referred to in detail. And
he was unusually delighted and pleased when any of
the papers stated that he looked smart and self-
possessed, or showed great self-control—which some
of them did.

| “They make a hero of me,” he said one morning
when Williams went to see him as usual before
court opened, “and if I go to the Chair—which
I tink I not do, you know—you shall see some-

MAX HENSIG et

thing fine. Berhaps they electrocute a corpse
only!” ;

And then, with dreadful callousness, he began to
chaff the reporter about the tone of his articles—for
the first time.

“T only report what is said and done in court,”
stammered Williams, horribly uncomfortable, “and
I am always ready to write anything you care to
say ”

“T haf no fault to find,” answered Hensig, his
cold blue eyes fixed on the reporter’s face through
the bars, “none at all. You tink I haf killed, and
you show it in all your sendences. Haf you ever
seen a man in the Chair, I ask you ?” ;

Williams was obliged to say he had.

‘Ach was! You haf indeed!” said the doctor
coolly.

“It’s instantaneous, though,” the other added
quickly, ‘(and must be quite painless.” This was
not exactly what he thought, but what else could he
say to the poor devil who might presently be strapped
down into it with that horrid band across his shaved

head !

- Hensig laughed, and turned away to walk up and
down the narrow cell. Suddenly he made a quick
movement and sprang like a panther close up to the
bars, pressing his face between them with an expres-
sion that was entirely new. Williams started back
a pace in spite of himself.

“There are worse ways of dying than that,” he
said in a low voice, with a diabolical look in his
eyes ; “slower ways that are bainful much more, I

76 MAX HENSIG

shall get oudt. I shall not be conficted. Ishall get
oudt, and then perhaps I come and tell you apout
them.” ‘

The hatred in his voice and expression was un-
mistakable, but almost at once the face changed
back to the cold pallor it usually wore, and the
extraordinary doctor was laughing again and
quietly discussing his lawyers and their good or
bad points.

After all, then, that skin of indifference was only
assumed, and the man really resented bitterly the
tone of hisarticles. He liked the publicity, but was
furious with Williams for having come to a con-
clusion and for letting that conclusion show through
his reports.

The reporter was relieved to get out into the fresh
air. He walked briskly up the stone steps to the
court-room, still haunted by the memory of that
odious white face pressing between the bars and the
dreadful look in the eyes that had come and gone
so swiftly. And what did those words mean
exactly ? Had he heard them right ? Were they a
threat ?

“There are slower and more painful ways of
dying, and if I get out I shall perhaps come and tell
you about them.”

The work of reporting the evidence helped to
chase the disagreeable vision, and the compli-
ments of the city editor on the excellence of his
“story,” with its suggestion of a possible increase
of salary, gave his mind quite a different turn;
yet always at the back of his consciousness there

S MAX HENSIG nH

remained the vague, unpleasant memory that he had
roused the bitter hatred of this man, and, as he
thought, of a man who was a veritable monster.

There may have been something hypnotic, a
little perhaps, in this obsessing and haunting idea
of the man’s steely wickedness, intellectual and
horribly skilful, moving freely through life with
something like a god’s power and with a list of
unproved and unprovable murders behind him.
Certainly it impressed his imagination with very
vivid force, and he could not think of this doctor,
young, with unusual knowledge and out-of-the-way
skill, yet utterly unmoral, free to work his will on
men and women who dispieased him, and almost safe
from detection—he could not think of it all without
a shudder and a crawling of the skin. He was
exceedingly glad when the last day of the trial was
reached and he no longer was obliged to seek the
daily interview in the cell, or to sit all day in the
crowded court watching the detestable white face
of the prisoner in the dock and listening to the web
of evidence closing round him, but just failing to
hold him tight enough for the Chair. For Hensig
was acquitted, though the jury sat up all night to
come to a decision, and the final interview Williams
had with the man immediately before his release
into the street was the pleasantest and yet the most
disagreeable of all.

“1 knew I get oudt all right,’ said Hensig witha
slight laugh, but without showing the real relief he
must have felt. ‘ No one peliefed me guilty but my
vife’s family and yourself, Mr. Vulture reporter. |

78 MAX HENSIG

read efery day your repordts. You chumped to a
conglusion too quickly, I tink de

“Oh, we write what we're told to write——’

“‘Berhaps some day you write anozzer story, or
berhaps you. read the story some one else write of
your own trial. Then you understand better what
you make me feel.”

Williams hurried on to ask the doctor for his
opinion of the conduct of the trial, and then
inquired what his plans were for the future. The
answer to the question caused him genuine relief.

“Ach! I return of course to Chermany,” he
said. ‘‘ People here are now afraid of me a liddle.
The newpapers haf killed me instead of the Chair.
Goot-bye, Mr. Vulture reporter, goot-bye !”

And Williams wrote out his last interview with as
great a relief, probably, as Hensig felt when he
heard the foreman of the jury utter the words “ Not
guilty” ; but the line that gave him most pleasure
was the one announcing the intended departure of
the acquitted man for Germany, |

,

Ill

THE New York public want sensational reading in
their daily life, and they get it, for the newspaper
that refused to furnish it would fail in a week, and
New York newspaper proprietors do not pose as
philanthropists. Horror succeeds horror, and the
public interest is never for one instant allowed to
faint by the way.

Like any other reporter who betrayed the smallest
powers of description, Williams} realised this fact
with his very first week on the Vulture. His daily
work became simply a series of sensational reports
of sensational happenings ; he lived in a perpetual
whirl of exciting arrests, murder trials, cases of
blackmail, divorce, forgery, arson, corruption, and
every other kind of wickedness imaginable. Each
case thrilled him a little less than the preceding one;
excess of sensation had simply numbed him; he
became, not callous, but irresponsive, and had long
since reached the stage when excitement ceases to
betray judgment, as with inexperienced reporters it
was apt to do.

The Hensig case, however, for a long time lived
in his imagination and haunted him, The bald
facts were buried in the police files at Mulberry

80 MAX HENSIG

Street headquarters and in the newspaper office
“ morgues,” while the public, thrilled daily by fresh
horrors, forgot the very existence of the evil doctor
a couple of days after the acquittal of the central
figure.

But for Williams it was otherwise. The person-
ality of the heartless and calculating murderer—the
intellectual poisoner, as he called him—had made a
deep impression on his imagination, and for many
weeks his memory kept him alive as a moving and
actual horror in his life. The words he had heard
him utter, with their covert threats and ill-concealed
animosity, helped, no doubt, to vivify the recollec-
tion and to explain why Hensig stayed in his
thoughts and haunted his dreams with a persistence
that reminded him of his very earliest cases on the
paper.

With time, however, even Hensig began to fade
away into the confused background of piled up
memories of prisoners and prison scenes, and at
length the memory became so deeply buried that it
no longer troubled him at all.

The summer passed, and Williams came_ back
from his hard-earned holiday of two weeks in the
Maine backwoods. New York was at its best, and
the thousands who had been forced to stay and face
its torrid summer heats were beginning to revive
under the spell of the brilliant autumn days. Cool
sea breezes swept over its burnt streets from the
Lower Bay, and across the splendid flood of the
Hudson River the woods on the Palisades of New
Jersey had turned to crimson and gold, The air

MAX HENSIG 81

was electric, sharp, sparkling, and the life of the
city began to pulse anew with its restless and im-
petuous energy. Bronzed faces from sea and
mountains thronged the streets, health and light-
heartedness showed in every eye, for autumn in New
York wields a potent magic not to be denied, and
even the East Side slums, where the unfortunates
crowd in their squalid thousands, had the appear-
ance of having been swept and cleansed. Along
the water-fronts especially the powers of sea and
sun and scented winds combined to work an irre-
sistible fever in the hearts of all who chafed within
their prison walls.

And in Williams, perhaps more than in most,
there was something that responded vigorously to
the influences of hope and cheerfulness everywhere
abroad. Fresh with the vigour of his holiday and
full of good resolutions for the coming winter he
felt released from the evil spell of irregular living,
and as he crossed one October morning to Staten

Island in the big double-ender ferry-boat, his heart

was light, and his eye wandered to the blue waters

and the hazy line of woods beyond with feelings of

pure gladness and delight.

He was on his way to Quarantine to meet an
incoming liner for the Vulture. A Jew-baiting
member of the German Reichstag was coming to
deliver a series of lectures in New York on his
favourite subject, and the newspapers who deemed
him worthy of notice at all were sending him fair
warning that his mission would be tolerated perhaps,

but not welcomed. The Jews were good citizens

F

82 MAX HENSIG

and America a “free country,’ and his meetings
in the Cooper Union Hall would meet with derision
certainly, and violence possibly.

The assignment was a pleasant one, and Williams
had instructions to poke fun at the officious and
interfering German, and advise him to return to
Bremen by the next steamer without venturing
among flying eggs and dead cats on the plat-
form. He entered fully into the spirit of the job
and was telling the Quarantine doctor about it
as they steamed down the bay in the little tug to
meet the huge liner just anchoring inside Sandy
Hook.

The decks of the ship were crowded with
passengers watching the arrival of the puffing tug,
and just as they drew alongside in the shadow
Williams suddenly felt his eyes drawn away from
the swinging rope ladder to some point about half-
way down the length of the vessel. There, among
the intermediate passengers on the lower deck, he
saw a face staring at him with fixed intentness. The
eyes were bright blue, and the skin, in that row of
bronzed passengers, showed remarkably white. At
once, and with a violent rush of blood from the
heart, he recognised Hensig.

In a moment everything about him changed: the
blue waters of the bay turned black, the light
seemed to leave the sun, and all the old sensations
of fear and loathing came over him again like the
memory of some great pain. He shook himself,
and clutched the rope ladder to swing up after the
Health Officer, angry, yet genuinely alarmed at the

|

MAX HENSIG 83

same time, to realise that the return of this man
could so affect him. His interview with the Jew-
haiter was of the briefest possible description, and
he hurried through to catch the Quarantine tug
back to Staten Island, instead of steaming up the
bay with the great liner into dock, as the other
reporters did. He had caught no second glimpse
of the hated German, and he even went so far as to
harbour a faint hope that he might have been
deceived, and that some trick of resemblance in
another face had caused a sort of subjective hallu-
cination. At any rate, the days passed into weeks,
and October slipped into November, and there was
no recurrence of the distressing vision. Perhaps,
after all, it was a stranger only ; or, if it was Hensig,
then he had forgotten all about the reporter, and his
return had no connection necessarily with the idea
of revenge.

None the less, however, Williams felt uneasy. He
told his friend Dowling, the policeman.

“Old news,” laughed the Irishman. “ Head-
quarters are keeping an eye on him as a suspect.
Berlin wants a man for two murders—goes by the
name of Brunner—and from their description we
think it’s this feller Hensig. Nothing certain yet,
but we’re on his trail. I’m on his trail,’ he added
proudly, “and don’t you forget it! I'll let you
know anything when the time comes, but mum’s
the word just now !”

One night, not long after this meeting, Williams
and the Senator were covering a big fire on the

| West Side docks. They were standing on the out-

84 MAX HENSIG

skirts of the crowd watching the immense flames
that a shouting wind seemed to carry half-way across
the river. The surrounding shipping was brilliantly

lit up and the roar was magnificent. The Senator, —

having come out with none of his own, borrowed
his friend’s overcoat for a moment to protect him
from spray and flying cinders while he went inside
the fire lines for the latest information obtainable.
It was after midnight, and the main story had been
telephoned to the office; all they had now to do
was to send in the latest details and corrections to
be written up at the news desk.

“T’ll wait for you over at the corner!” shouted
Williams, moving off through a scene of indescrib-
able confusion and taking off his fire badge as he
went. This conspicuous brass badge, issued to
reporters by the Fire Department, gave them the
right to pass within the police cordon in the pursuit
of information, and at their own risk. Hardly had
he unpinned it from his coat when a hand dashed
out of the crowd surging up against him and made
a determined grab at it. He turned to trace the
owner, but at that instant a great lurching of the
mob nearly carried him off his feet, and che only
just succeeded in seeing the arm withdrawn,
having failed of its object, before he was landed
with a violent push upon the pavement he had
been aiming for.

The incident did not strike him as particularly
odd, for in such a crowd there are many who covet
the privilege of getting closer to the blaze. He
simply laughed and put the badge safely in his

Ee Se

MAX HENSIG 8s

pocket, and then stood to watch the dying flames
until his friend came to join him with the latest
details.

Yet, though time was pressing and the Senator
had little enough to do, it was fully half an hour
before he came lumbering up through the dark-
ness. Williams recognised him some distance away
by the check ulster he wore—his own.

But was it the Senator, after all? The figure
moved oddly and with a limp, as though injured,
A few feet off it stopped and peered at Williams
through the darkness.

“That you, Williams ?” asked a gruff voice.

“T thought you were some one else for a moment,”
answered the reporter, relieved to recognise his
friend, and moving forward to meet him. “But
what’s wrong? Are you hurt ?”

The Senator looked ghastly in the lurid glow of
the fire. His face was white, and there was a little
trickle of blood on the forehead.

“Some fellow nearly did for me,” he said ; “de-
liberately pushed me clean off the edge of the dock.
If I hadn’t fallen on toa broken pile and found a
boat, I’d have been drowned sure as God made little
apples. Think I know who it was, too. Think! I
mean I know, because I saw his damned white face
- and heard what he said.”

“ Who in the world was it ? What did he want ?”

stammered the other.
The Senator took his arm, and lurched into the
saloon behind them for some brandy. As he did

so he kept looking over his shoulder.

86 MAX HENSIG

‘Quicker we’re off from this dirty neighbourhood,
the better,” he said.

Then he turned to Williams, looking oddly at him
over the glass, and answering his questions.

““Who was it ?—why, it was Hensig! And what
did he want ?—well, he wanted you!”

“Me! MHensig!” gasped the other.

“Guess he mistook me for you,” went on the
Senator, looking behind him at the door. ‘ The
crowd was so thick I cut across by the edge of the
dock. It was quite dark. There wasn’t a soul near
me. I wasrunning. Suddenly what I thought was
a stump got up in front of me, and, Gee whiz, man !
I tell you it was Hensig, or I’m a drunken Dutch-
man. I looked bang into his face. ‘Good-pye,
Mr. Vulture reporter,’ he said, with a damned laugh,
and gave mea push that sent me backwards clean
over the edge.”

The Senator paused for breath, and to empty his
second glass.

“ My overcoat !” exclaimed Williams faintly.

“Oh, he’d been following you right enough, I
guess.”

The Senator was not really injured, and the two
men walked back towards Broadway to find a tele-
phone, passing through a region of dimly-lighted
streets known as Little Africa, where the negroes
lived, and where it was safer to keep the middle of
the road, thus avoiding sundry dark alley-ways
opening off the side. They talked hard all the
way.

“ He’s after you, no doubt,” repeated the Senator.

MAX HENSIG 87

“T guess he never forgot your report of his trial.
Better keep your eye peeled!” he added with a
laugh.

But Williams didn’t feel a bit inclined to laugh,
and the thought that it certainly was Hensig he had
seen on the steamer, and that he was following him
so closely as to mark his check ulster and make an
attempt on his life, made him feel horribly uncom-
fortable, to say the least. To be stalked by such a
man was terrible. To realise that he was marked
down by that white-faced, cruel wretch, merciless
and implacable, skilled in the manifold ways of
killing by stealth—that somewhere in the crowds
of the great city he was watched and waited for,
hunted, observed: here was an obsession really to
torment and become dangerous. Those light-blue
eyes, that keen intelligence, that mind charged with
revenge, had been watching him ever since the trial,
even from across the sea. The idea terrified him.
It brought death into his thoughts for the first time
with a vivid sense of nearness and reality—far
greater than anything he had experienced when
watching others die.

That night, in his dingy little room in the East
Nineteenth Street boarding-house, Williams went to
bed in a blue funk, and for days afterwards he
went about his business in a continuation of the
same blue funk. Itwas useless to deny it. He kept
his eyes everywhere, thinking he was being watched
and followed. A new face in the office, at the
boarding-house table, or anywhere on his usual
beat, made him jump. His daily work was haunted ;

88 MAX HENSIG

his dreams were all nightmares; he forgot all
his good resolutions, and plunged into the old
indulgences that helped him to forget his
distress. It took twice as much liquor to make
him jolly, and four times as much to make him
reckless.

Not that he really was a drunkard, or cared to
drink for its own sake, but he moved in a thirsty
world of reporters, policemen, reckless and loose-
living men and women, whose form of greeting was
“ What’: you take ?” and method of reproach “ Oh,
he’s sworn off!” Only now he was more careful
how much he took, counting the cocktails and fizzes
poured into him during the course of his day’s
work, and was anxious never to lose control of him-
self. He must be on the watch. He changed his
eating and drinking haunts, and altered any habits
that could give a clue to the devil on his trail. He
even went so far as to change his boarding-house.
His emotion—the emotion of fear—changed every-
thing. It tinged the outer world with gloom, draping
it in darker colours, stealing something from the
sunlight, reducing enthusiasm, and acting as a
heavy drag, as it were, upon all the normal func-
tions of life.

The effect upon his imagination, already diseased
by alcohol and drugs, was, of course, exceedingly
strong. The doctor's words about developing a
germ until it became too powerful to be touched by
any medicine, and then letting it into the victim’s
system by means of a pin-scratch—this possessed
him more than anything else. The idea dominated

MAX HENSIG 89

his thoughts; it seemed -so clever, so cruel, so
devilish. The “accident” at the fire had been, of
course, a real accident, conceived on the spur
of the moment—the result of a chance meeting
and a foolish mistake. Hensig had no need to
resort to such clumsy methods. When the right
moment came he would adopt a far simpler, safer
plan.

Finally, he became so obsessed by the idea that
Hensig was following him, waiting for his oppor-
tunity, that one day he told the news editor the whole
story. His nerves were so shaken that he could not
do his work properly.

“That’s a good story. Make two hundred of it,”
said the editor at once. “ Fake the name, of course.
Mustn’t mention Hensig, or there'll be a libel
suit.”

But Williams was in earnest, and insisted so for-
cibly that Treherne, though busy as ever, took him
aside into his room with the glass door.

“Now, see here, Williams, you're drinking too
much,” he said; “ that’s about thesize of it. Steady
up a bit on the wash, and Hensig’s face will dis-
appear.” He spoke kindly, but sharply. He was
young himself, awfully keen, with much knowledge
of human nature and a rare “nose for news.” He
understood the abilities of his small army of men
with intuitive judgment. That they drank was
nothing to him, provided they did their work.
Everybody in that world drank, and the man who
didn’t was looked upon with suspicion.

Williams explained rather savagely that the face

90 MAX HENSIG

was no mere symptom of delirium tremens, and
the editor spared him another two minutes before
rushing out to tackle the crowd of men waiting for
him at the news desk.

“That so? Youdon’t say!” he asked, with more
interest. “ Well, I guess Hensig’s simply trying to
razzle-dazzle you. You tried to kill him by your
reports, and he wants to scare you by way of re-
venge. But he'll never dare do anything. Throw
hima good bluff, and he'll give in like a baby. Every-
thing’s pretence in this world. But I rather like
the idea of the germs. That’s original!”

Williams, a little angry at the other’s flippancy,
told the story of the Senator’s adventure and the
changed overcoat.

“May be, may be,” replied the hurried editor;
“but the Senator drinks Chinese whisky, and a man
who does that might imagine anything on God’s
earth. Take a tip, Williams, from an old hand, and
let up a bit on the liquor. Drop cocktails and keep
to straight whisky, and never drink on an empty
stomach. Above all, don’t mix!”

He gave him a keen look and was off,

“Next time you see this German,” cried Treherne
from the door, “ go up and ask him for an interview
on what it feels like to escape from the Chair—just
to show him you don’t care ared cent. Talk about
having him watched and followed—suspected man
—and all that sort of flim-flam. Pretend to warn
him. It'll turn the tables and make him digest a bit.
See?

Williams sauntered out into the street to report a

MAX HENSIG gt

meeting of the Rapid Transit Commissioners, and
the first person he met as he ran down the office
steps was—Max Hensig.

Before he could stop, or swerve aside, they were
face to face. His head swam fora moment and he
began to tremble. Then some measure of self-
possession returned, and he tried instinctively to act
on the editor’s advice. No other plan was ready, so
he drew on the last force that had occupied his
mind, It was that—or running.

Hensig, he noticed, looked prosperous ; he wore
a fur overcoat and cap. His face was whiter than
ever, and his blue eyes burned like coals,

“Why! Dr. Hensig, you’re back in New York!”
he exclaimed. “When did you arrive? I’m glad
—I suppose—I mean—er—will you come and have
a drink ?” he concluded desperately. It was very
foolish, but for the life of him he could think of
nothing else to say. And the last thing in the world
he wished was that his enemy should know that he
was afraid.

“T tink not, Mr. Vulture reporder, tanks,” he
answered coolly; “but I sit py and vatch you
_ drink,” His self-possession was perfect, as it always
was,

But Williams, more himself now, seized on the
refusal and moved on, saying something about
having a meeting to go to.

“T walk a liddle way with you, berhaps,” Hensig
said, following him down the pavement.

It was impossible to prevent him, and they started
side by side across City Hall Park towards Broad-

92 MAX HENSIG

way. It wasafter four o’clock ; the dusk was falling ;
the little park was thronged with people walking in
all directions, every one*in a terrific hurry as usual.
Only Hensig seemed calm and unmoved among that
racing, tearing life about them. He carried an
atmosphere of ice about with him: it was his voice
and manner that produced this impression; his
mind was alert, watchful, determined, always sure of
itself.

Williams wanted torun. He reviewed swiftly in
his mind a dozen ways of getting rid of him quickly,
yet knowing well they were all futile. He put his
hands in his overcoat pockets—the check ulster—
and watched sideways every movement of his com-
panion.

“Living in New York again, aren’t you?” he
began.

“Not as a doctor any more,’ was the reply. “I
now teach and study. Also I write sciendific books
a liddle i‘

“What about ?”

“Cherms,” said the other, looking at him and
laughing. “ Disease cherms, their culture and de-
velopment,” He put the accent on the “ op.”

Williams walked more quickly. With a great
effort he tried to put Treherne’s advice into prac-
KiCe.

“You care to give me an interview any time—on
your special subjects ?” he asked, as naturally as
he could.

“Oh yes; with much bleasure. I lif in Harlem
now, if you will call von day——”

MAX HENSIG 93

“Our office is best,’ interrupted the reporter.
“Paper, desks, library, all handy for use, you
know.”

“Tf you’re afraid——” began Hensig. Then,
without finishing the sentence, he added with a
laugh, “I haf no arsenic there. You not tink me
any more a pungling boisoner? You haf changed
your mind about all dat ?”

Williams felt his flesh beginning to creep. How
could he speak of such a matter! His own wife,
too!

He turned quickly and faced him, standing still
for a moment so that the throng of people deflected
into two streams past them. He felt it absolutely
imperative upon him to say something that should
convince the German he was not afraid.

“JT suppose you are aware, Dr. Hensig, that
the police know you have returned, and that
you are being watched probably ?” he said in a
low voice, forcing himself to meet the odious blue
eyes.

“And why not, bray?” he asked imperturb-
ably.

“ They may suspect something

“ Susbected—already again ? Ach was!” said the
German.

“J only wished to warn you stammered
Williams, who always found it difficult to remain
self-possessed under the other’s dreadful stare.

“No boliceman see what I do—or catch me
again,” he laughed quite horribly. ‘“ But I tank you
all the same.’’

”

”

04 MAX HENSIG

Williams turned to catch a Broadway car going
at fullspeed. He could not stand another minute
with this man, who affected him so disagree-
ably.

“‘T call at the office one day to gif youinterview !”
Hensig shouted as he dashed off, and the next
minute he was swallowed up in the crowd, and
Williams, with mixed feelings and a strange inner
trembling, went to cover the meeting of the Rapid
Transit Board.

But, while he reported the proceedings mechani-
cally, his mind was busy with quite other thoughts.
Hensig was at his side the whole time. He felt
quite sure, however unlikely it seemed, that there
was no fancy in his fears, and that he had judged
the German correctly. Hensig hated him, and
would put him out of the way if he could. He
would do it in such a way that detection would be
almost impossible. He would not shoot or poison
in the ordinary way, or resort to any clumsy method.
He would simply follow, watch, wait his oppor-
tunity, and then act with utter callousness and re-
morseless determination. And Williams already
felt pretty certain of the means that would be em-
ployed: “Cherms!”

This meant proximity. He must watch every one
who came close to him in trains, cars, restaurants—
anywhere and everywhere. It could be done in a
second: only a slight scratch would be necessary,
and the disease would be in his blood with such
strength that the chances of recovery would be
slight. And what could he do? He could not

MAX HENSIG 95

have Hensig watched or arrested. He had no
story to tell to a magistrate, or to the police, for no
one would listen to such a tale. And, if he were
stricken down by sudden illness, what was more
likely than to say he had caught the fever in the
ordinary course of his work, since he was always
frequenting noisome dens and the haunts of the
very poor, the foreign and filthy slums of the East
Side, and the hospitals, morgues, and cells of all
sorts and conditions of men? No; it was a dis-
agreeable situation, and Williams, young, shaken in
nerve, and easily impressionable as he was, could
not prevent its obsession of his mind and imagina-
tion.

“Tf I get suddenly ill,” he told the Senator, his
only friend in the whole city, “and send for you,
look carefully for a scratch on my body. Tell
Dowling, and tell the doctor the story.”

“You think Hensig goes about with a little bottle
of plague germs in his vest pocket,” laughed the
other reporter, “ready to scratch you with a
pin?”

“Some damned scheme like that, I’m sure.”

** Nothing could be proved anyway. He wouldn't
keep the evidence in his pocket till he was arrested,
would he ?”

During the next week or two Williams ran against
Hensig twice—accidentally. The first time it hap-
pened just outside his own boarding-house—the
new one. Hensig had his foot on the stone steps as
if just about to come up, but quick as a flash he
turned his face away and moved on down the street,

96 MAX HENSIG

This was about eight o’clock in the evening, and the
hall light fell through the opened door upon his
face. The second time it was not so clear: the
reporter was covering a case in the courts, a case of
suspicious death in which a woman was chief
prisoner, and he thought he saw the doctor’s white
visage watching him from among the crowd at the
back of the court-room. When he looked a second
time, however, the face had disappeared, and there
was no sign afterwards of its owner in the lobby or
corridor.

That same day he met Dowling in the building;
he was promoted now, and was always in plain
clothes. The detective drew him aside into a corner.
The talk at once turned upon the German.

“We're watching him too,” he said. “ Nothing
you can use yet, but he’s changed his name again.
and never stops at the same address for more than a
week or two. I guess he’s Brunner right enough,
the man Berlin’s looking for. He’s a holy terror if
ever there was one.”

Dowling was happy as a schoolboy to be in touch
with such a promising case.

““What’s he up to now in particular ?” asked the
other.

“Something pretty black,” said the detective.
** But I can’t tell you yet awhile. He calls himself
Schmidt now, and he’s dropped the ‘Doctor.’ We
may take him any day—just waiting for advices from
Germany.”

Williams told his story of the overcoat adventure
with the Senator, and his belief that Hensig was

-elessly, “I guess we'll have to make some kind
a case against him anyway, just to get him out of
2 way. Ae s too dangerous to be around huntin’

IV

So gradual sometimes are the approaches of fear
that the processes by which it takes possession of a
man’s soul are often too insidious to be recognised,
much less to be dealt with, until their object has
been finally accomplished and the victim has lost
the power to act. And by this time the reporter,
who had again plunged into excess, felt so nerveless
that, if he met Hensig face to face, he could not
answer for what he might do. He might assault
his tormentor violently—one result of terror—or
he might find himself powerless to do anything
at all but yield, like a bird fascinated before a
snake.

He was always thinking now of the moment when
they would meet, and of what would happen ; for
he was just as certain that they must meet eventually,
and that Hensig would try to kill him, as that his
next birthday would find him twenty-five years old.
‘That meeting, he well knew, could be delayed only,
not prevented, and his changing again to another
boarding-house, or moving altogether to a different
city, could only postpone the final accounting be-
tween them. It was bound to come.

A reporter on a New York newspaper has one

MAX HENSIG 99

day in seven to himself. Wiliiams’s day off was
Monday, and he was always glad when it came.
Sunday was especially arduous for him, because in
addition to the unsatisfactory nature of the day’s
assignments, involving private interviewing which
the citizens pretended to resent on their day of rest,
he had the task in the evening of reporting a diff-
cult sermon in a Brooklyn church. Having onlya
column anda half at his disposal, he had to con-
dense as he went along, and the speaker was so
rapid, and so fond of lengthy quotations, that the
reporter found his shorthand only just equal to the
task. It was usually after half-past nine o’clock
when he left the church, and there was still the
labour of transcribing his notes in the office against
time.

The Sunday following the glimpse of his tor-
mentor’s face in the courtroom he was busily
condensing the wearisome periods of the preacher,
sitting at a little table immediately under the pulpit,
when he glanced up during a brief pause and let his
eye wander over the congregation and up to the
crowded galleries. Nothing was farther at the
moment from his much-occupied brain than the
doctor of Amityville, and it was such an unexpected
shock to encounter his fixed stare up there among
the occupants of the front row, watching him with
an evil smile, that his senses temporarily deserted
him. The next sentence of the preacher was
wholly lost, and his shorthand during the brief
remainder of the sermon was quite illegible, he
found, when he came to transcribe it at the office.

109 MAX HENSIG

It was after one o'clock in the morning when he
finished, and he went out feeling exhausted and
rather shaky. In the all-night drug store at the
corner he indulged accordingly in several more
glasses of whisky than usual, and talked a long time
with the man who guarded the back room and served
liquor to the few who knew the pass-word, since
the shop had really no licence at all. The true
reason for this delay he recognised quite plainly: he
was afraid of the journey homealong the dark and
emptying streets. The lower end of New York is
practically deserted after ten o’clock: it has no
residences, no theatres, no cafés, and only a few
travellers from late ferries share it with reporters, a
sprinkling of policemen, and the ubiquitous ne’er-
do-wells who haunt the saloon doors. The news-
paper world of Park Row was, of course, alive
with light and movement, but once outside that
narrow zone and the night descended with an effect
of general darkness.

Williams thought of spending three dollars on a
cab, but dismissed the idea because of its extrava-
gance. Presently Galusha Owens came in—too
drunk to be of any use, though, as a companion.
Besides, he lived in Harlem, which was miles beyond
Ninteenth Street, where Williams had to go. He
took another rye whisky—his fourth—and looked
cautiously through the coloured glass windows into
the street. No one was visible. Then he screwed
up his nerves another twist or two, and made a
bolt for it, taking the steps in a sort of flying leap
—and running full tilt into a man whose figure

MAX HENSIG IOI

seemed almost to have risen ont of the very pave-
ment.

He gave a cry and raised his fists to strike.

“ Where’s your hurry ?” laughed a familiar voice.
“Isthe Prince of Wales dead?” It was the Senator,
most welcome of all possible appearances.

“Come in and have a horn,” said Williams, “and
then I’ll walk home with you.” He was immensely
glad to see him, for only a few streets separated their
respective boarding-houses.

“ But he’d never sit out a long sermon just for the
pleasure of watching you,” observed the Senator
after hearing his friend’s excited account.

“‘That man’ll take any trouble in the world to
gain his end,” said the other with conviction. “ He’s
making a study of all my movements and habits.
He’s not the sort to take chances when it’s a matter
of life and death. I'll bet he’s not far away at this
moment.”

“Rats!” exclaimed the Senator, laughing in
rather a forced way. ‘ You're getting the jumps
with your Hensig and death. Have another rye.”

They finished their drinks and went out together,
crossing City Hall Park diagonally towards Broad-
way, and then turning north. They crossed Canal
and Grand Streets, deserted and badly lighted. Only
a few drunken loiterers passed them. Occasionally a
policeman on the corner, always close to the side-
door of a saloon, of course, recognised one or other
of them and called good-night. Otherwise there
was no one, and they seemed to have this part of
Manhattan Island pretty well to themselves, The

102 MAX HENSIG

presence of the Senator, ever cheery and kind, keep-
ing close to his friend all the way, the effect of the
half-dozen whiskies, and the sight of the guardians
of the law, combined to raise the reporter’s spirits
somewhat; and when they reached Fourteenth
Street, with its better light and greater traffic, and
saw Union Square lying just beyond, close to his
own street, he felt a distinct increase of courage
and no objection to going on alone,

“ Good-night !” cried the Senator cheerily. “ Get
home safe ; Iturn off here anyway.” He hesitated
a moment before turning down the street, and then
added, “ You feel O.K., don’t you ?”

“You may get double rates for an exclusive bit of
news if you come on and see me assaulted,” Williams
replied, laughing aloud, and then waiting to see the
last of his friend.

But the moment the Senator was gone the laughter
disappeared. He wenton alone, crossing the square
among the trees and walking very quickly. Once
or twice he turned to see if anybody were following
him, and his eyes scanned carefully as he passed
every occupant of the park benches where a certain
number of homeless loafers always find their night’s
lodging, But there was nothing apparently to cause
him alarm, and in a few minutes more he would be
safe in the little back bedroom of his own house,
Over the way he saw the lights of Burbacher’s
saloon, where respectable Germans drank Rhine wine
and played chess tillall hours. He thought of going
in for a night-cap, hesitating for a moment, but
finally going on. When he got to the end of the

MAX HENSIG 103

Square, however, and saw the dark opening of East
Eighteenth Street, he thought after all he would go
back and have another drink. He hovered fora
moment on the kerbstone and then turned; his
will often slipped a cog now in this way.

It was only when he was on his way back that he
realised the truth: that his real reason for turning
back and avoiding the dark open mouth of the street
was because he was afraid of something its shadows
might conceal. This dawned upon him quite sud-
denly. If there had been a light at the corner of
the street he would never have turned back at all.
And as this passed through his mind, already some-
what fuddled with what he had drunk, he became
aware that the figure of a man had slipped forward
out of the dark space he had just refused to enter,
and was following him down the street. The man
was pressing, too, close into the houses, using any
protection of shadow or railing that would enable
him to move unseen.

But the moment Williams entered the bright
section of pavement opposite the wine-room windows
he knew that this man had come close up behind
him, with a little silent run, and he turned at once
to face him. He saw a slim man with dark hair
and blue eyes, and recognised him instantly.

“It’s very late to be coming home,” said the man
atonce. “I thought I recognised my reporder friend
from the Vulture.’ These were the actual words,
and the voice was meant to be pleasant, but what
Williams thought he heard, spoken in tones of ice,
was something like, “ At last I’ve caught you! You

104 MAX HENSIG

are in a state of collapse nervously, and you are
exhausted. I can do what I please with you.” For
- the face and the voice were those of Hensig the
Tormentor, and the dyed hair only served to
emphasise rather grotesquely the man’s features
and make the pallor of the skin greater by con-
trast.

His first instinct was to turn and run, his second
to fly at the man and strike him. A terror beyond
death seized him. A pistol held to his head, or a
waving bludgeon, he could easily have faced; but
this odious creature, slim, limp, and white of face,
with his terrible suggestion of cruelty, literally
appalled him so that he could think of nothing
intelligent to do or to say. This accurate know-
ledge of his movements, too, added to his distress—
this waiting for him at night when he was tired and
foolish from excess. At that moment he knew all
the sensations of the criminal a few hours before
his execution: the bursts of hysterical terror, the
inability to realise his position, to hold his thoughts
steady, the helplessness of it all. Yet, in the end,
the reporter heard his own voice speaking with a
rather weak and unnatural kind of tone and accom-
panied by a gulp of forced laughter—heard himself
stammering the ever-ready formula: “I was going
to have a drink before turning in—will you join
me ?”

The invitation, he realised afterwards, was
prompted by the one fact that stood forth clearly in
his mind at the moment—the thought, namely, that
whatever he did or said, he must never let Hensig

MAX HENSIG 105

for one instant imagine that he felt afraid and was
so helpless a victim,

Side by side they moved down the street, for
Hensig had acquiesced in the suggestion, and
Williams already felt dazed by the strong, persistent
will of his companion. His thoughts seemed to be
flying about somewhere outside his brain, beyond
control, scattering wildly. He could think of no-
thing further to say, and had the smallest diversion
furnished the opportunity he would have turned
and run for his life through the deserted streets.

“A glass of lager,” he heard the German say, “I
take berhaps that with you. You know me in spite
of ” he added, indicating by a movement the
changed colour of his hair and moustache. “ Also,
I gif you now the interview you asked for, if you
like.”

The reporter agreed feebly, finding nothing ade-
quate to reply. He turned helplessly and looked
into his face with something of the sensations a bird
may feel when it runs at last straight into the jaws
of the reptile that has fascinated it. The fear of
weeks settled down upon him, focussing about his
heart. It was, of course, an éffect of hypnotism, he
remembered thinking vaguely through the befuddle-
ment of his drink—this culminating effect of an evil
and remorseless personality acting upon one that
was diseased and extra receptive. And while he
made the suggestion and heard the other’s accept-
ance of it, he knew perfectly well that he was falling
in with the plan of the doctor’s own making, a plan
that would end in an assault upon his person,

106 MAX HENSIG

perhaps a technical assault only—a mere touch—
still, an assault that would be at the same time an
attempt at murder. The alcohol buzzed in his ears.
He felt strangely powerless. He walked steadily
to his doom, side by side with his executioner.

Any attempt to analyse the psychology of the
situation was utterly beyond him. But, amid the
whirl of emotion and the excitement of the whisky,
he dimly grasped the importance of two fundamental
things.

And the first was that, though he was now muddled
and frantic, yet a moment would come when his
will would be capable of one supreme effort to
escape, and that therefore it would be wiser for
the present to waste no atom of volition on tem-
porary half-measures. He would play dead dog.
The fear that now paralysed him would accumulate
till it reached the point of saturation ; that would be
the time to strike for his life. For just as the coward
may reach a stage where he is capable of a sort of
frenzied heroism that no ordinarily brave man could
compass, so the victim of fear, at a point varying
with his balance of imagination and physical vigour,
will reach a state where fear leaves him and he
becomes numb to its effect from sheer excess of
feeling it. It is the point of saturation. He may
then turn suddenly calm and act with a judgment
and precision that simply bewilder the object of the
attack. It is, of course, the inevitable swing of the
pendulum, the law of equal action and reaction.

Hazily, tipsily perhaps, Williams was conscious
of this potential power deep within him, below the

MAX HENSIG 107

superficial layers of smaller emotions—could he but
be sufficiently terrified to reach it and bring it to the
surface where it must result in action.

And, as a consequence of this foresight of his
sober subliminal self, he offered no opposition to the
least suggestion of his tormentor, but made up his
mind instinctively to agree to all that he proposed.
Thus he lost no atom of the force he might eventually
call upon, by friction over details which in any case
he would yield in the end. And at the same time
he felt intuitively that his utter weakness might even
deceive his enemy a little and increase the chances
of his single effort to escape when the right moment
arrived.

That Williams was able to “imagine” this true
psychology, yet wholly unable to analyse it, simply
showed that on occasion he could be psychically
active. His deeper subliminal self, stirred by the
alcohol and the stress of emotion, was guiding him,
and would continue to guide him in proportion as
he let his fuddled normal self slip into the back-
ground without attempt to interfere.

And the second fundamental thing he grasped—
due even more than the first to psychic intuition—
was the certainty that he could drink more, up toa
certain point, with distinct advantage to his power
and lucidity—but up to a given point only. After
that would come unconsciousness, a single sip too
much and he would cross the frontier—a very
narrow one. It was as though he knew intuitively
that “the drunken consciousness is one bit of the
mystic consciousness.” At present he was only

108 MAX HENSIG

fuddled and fearful, but additional stimulant would
inhibit the effects of the other emotions, give him
unbounded confidence, clarify his judgment and
increase his capacity to a stage far beyond the
normal. Only—he must stop in time.

His chances of escape, therefore, so far as he
could understand, depended on these two things:
he must drink till he became self-confident and
arrived at the abnormally clear-minded stage of
drunkenness; and he must wait for the moment
when Hensig had so filled him up with fear that he
no longer could react to it. Then would be the
time to strike. Then his will would be free and
have judgment behind it.

These were the two things standing up clearly
somewhere behind that great confused turmoil of
mingled fear and alcohol.

Thus for the moment, though with scattered
forces and rather wildly feeble thoughts, he moved
down the street beside the man who hated him and
meant to kill him. He had no purpose at all but to
agreeand to wait. Any attempt he made now could
end only in failure.

They talked a little as they went, the German
calm, chatting as though he were merely an agree-
able acquaintance, but behaving with the obvious
knowledge that he held his victim secure, and that
his struggles would prove simply rather amusing.
He even laughed about his dyed hair, saying by
way of explanation that he had done it to please a
woman who told him it would make him look
younger, Williams knew this was a lie, and that

MAX HENSIG 109

the police had more to do with the change than a
woman ; but the man’s vanity showed through the
explanation, and was a vivid little self-revelation.

He objected to entering Burbacher’s, saying that
he (Burbacher) paid no blackmail to the police, and
might be raided for keeping open after hours.

“] know a nice quiet blace on~T’ird Avenue. We
go there,” he said.

Williams, walking unsteadily and shaking inwardly,
still groping, too, feebly after a way of escape,
turned down the side street with him. He thought
of the men he had watched walking down the short
corridor from the cell to the “ Chair” at Sing Sing,
and wondered if they felt as he did. It was just like
going to his own execution.

“T haf a new disgovery in bacteriology—in
cherms,” the doctor went on, “and it will make me
famous, for it is very imbortant. I gif it you
egsclusive for the Vulture, as you are a friend.” He
became technical, and the reporter’s mind lost itself
among such words as “toxins,” “alkaloids,” and the
like. But he realised clearly enough that Hensig
was playing with him and felt absolutely sure of
his victim. When he lurched badly, as he did more
than once, the German took his arm by way of
support, and at the vile touch of the man it was all
Williams could do not to scream or strike out
blindly.

They turned up Third Avenue and stopped at the
side door of a cheap saloon. He noticed the name
of Schumacher over the porch, but all lights were
out except a feeble glow that came through the

110 MAX HENSIG

glass fanlight. A man pushed his face cautiously
round the half-opened door, and after a brief
examination let them in with a whispered remark to
be quiet. It was the usual formula of the Tammany
saloon-keeper, who paid so much a month to the
police to be allowed to keep open all night, pro-
vided there was no noise or fighting. It was now
well after one o’clock in the morning, and the
streets were deserted.

The reporter was quite at home in the sort of
place they had entered; otherwise the sinister
aspect of a drinking “joint” after hours, with its
gloom and general air of suspicion, might have
caused him some extra alarm A dozen men, un-
pleasant of countenance, were standing at the bar,
where a single lamp gave just enough light to
enable them to see their glasses. The bar-tender
gave Hensig a swift glance of recognition as they
walked along the sanded floor.

“Come,” whispered the German ; “we go to the
back room, I know the bass-word,” he laughed,
leading the way,

They walked to the far end of the bar and opened
a door into a brightly lit room with about a dozen
tables in it, at most of whsch men sat drinking with
highly painted women, talking loudly, quarrelling,
singing, and the air thick with smoke. No one
took any notice of them as they went down the
room to a table in the corner farthest from the
door—Hensig chose it; and when the single waiter
came up with ‘Was nehmen die Herren?” anda
moment later brought the rye whisky they both

MAX HENSIG IIr

asked for, Williams swallowed his own without the
“chaser” of soda water, and ordered another on
the spot.

“TIt’sh awfully watered,” he said rather thickly to
his companion, “and I’m tired.”

“Cocaine, under the circumstances, would help
you quicker, berhaps!” replied the German with
an expression of amusement. Good God! was there
nothing about him the man had not found out?
He must have been shadowing him for days; it
was at least a week since Williams had been to the
First Avenue drug store to get the wicked bottle
refilled. Had he been on his trail every night when
he left the office togo home? Thisidea of remorse-
less persistence made him shudder.

“Then we finish quickly if you are tired,” the
doctor continued, “and to-morrow you can show
me your repordt for gorrections if you make any
misdakes berhaps. I gif you the address to-night
pefore we leave.”

The increased ugliness of his speech and accent
betrayed his growing excitement. Williams drank
his whisky, again without water, and called for yet
another, clinking glasses with the murderer opposite,
and swallowing half of this last glass, too, while
Hensig merely tasted his own, looking straight at
him over the performance with his evil eyes.

“JT can write shorthand,” began the reporter,
trying to appear at his ease.

“ Ach, I know, of course.”

There was a mirror behind the table, and he took
a quick glance round the room while the other

112 MAX HENSIG

began searching in his coat pocket for the papers he
had with him. Williams lost no single detail of his
movements, but at the same time managed swiftly
to get the “note” of the other occupants of the
tables.. Degraded and besotted faces he saw, almost
without exception, and not one to whom he could
appeal for help with any prospect of success. It
was a further shock, too, to realise that he preferred
the more or less bestial countenances round him to
the intellectual and ascetic face opposite. They
were at least human, whereas he was something
quite outside the pale; and this preference for the
low creatures, otherwise loathsome. to him, brought
his mind by sharp contrast to a new and vivid
realisation of the personality before him. He
gulped down his drink, and again ordered it to be
refilled.

But meanwhile the alcohol was beginning to key
him up out of the dazed and negative state into
which his first libations and his accumulations of
fear had plunged him. His brain became a shade
clearer. There was even a faint stirring of the will:
He had already drunk enough under normal cir-
cumstances to be simply reeling, but to-night the
emotion of fear inhibited the effects of the alcohol,
keeping him singularly steady. Provided he did
not exceed a given point, he could go on drinking
till he reached the moment of high power when he
could combine all his forces into the single con-
summate act of cleverly calculated escape. If he
missed this psychological moment he would collapse.

A sudden crash made him jump, It was behind

MAX HENSIG 113

him against the other wall. Inthe mirror he saw
that a middle-aged man had lost his balance and
fallen off his chair, foolishly intoxicated, and that
two women were ostensibly trying to lift him up,
but really were going swiftly through his pockets as
he lay in a heap on the floor. A big man who had
been asleep the whole evening in the corner stepped
snoring and woke up to look and laugh, but no one
interfered. A man must take care of himself in such
a place and with such company, or accept the con-
sequences. The big man composed himself again
for sleep, sipping his glass a little first, and the noise
of the room continued as before. It was a case of
“knock-out drops” in the whisky, put in by the
women, however, rather than by the saloon-keeper.
Williams remembered thinking he had nothing to
fear of that kind. Hensig’s method would be far
more subtle and clever—cherms! A scratch witha
pin anda germ!

“JT haf zome notes here of my disgovery,” he went
on, smiling significantly at the interruption, and
taking some papers out of an inner pocket. ‘ But
they are written in Cherman, so I dranslate for you.
You haf paper and benzil ?”

The reporter produced the sheaf of office copy
paper he always carried about with him, and prepared
to write. The rattle of the elevated trains outside
and the noisy buzz of drunken conversation inside
formed the background against which he heard the
German’s steely insistent voice going on ceaselessly
with the “dranslation and egsplanation.” From
time to time people left the room, and new customers

H

™

114 MAX HENSIG

reeled in. When the clatter of incipient fighting and
smashed glasses became too loud, Hensig waited till
it was quiet again. He. watched every new arrival
keenly. They were very few now, for the night had
passed into early morning and the room was gradu-
ally emptying. The waiter took snatches of sleep
in his chair by the door ; the big man still snored
heavily in the angle of the wall and window. When
he was the only one left, the proprietor would cer-
tainly close up. He had not ordered a drink for an
hour at least. Williams, however, drank on steadily,
always aiming at the point when he would be at the
top of his power, full of confidence and decision.
That moment was undoubtedly coming nearer all
the time. Yes, but so was the moment Hensig was
waiting for. He, too, felt absolutely confident,
encouraging his companion to drink more, and
watching his gradual collapse with unmasked glee.
He betrayed his gloating quite plainly now : he held
his victim too securely to feel anxious; when the big
man reeled out they would be alone for a brief
minute or two unobserved—and meanwhile he
allowed himself to become a little too careless from
over-confidence. And Williams noted that too.

For slowly the will of the reporter began to assert
itself, and with this increase of intelligence he of
course appreciated his awful position more keenly,
and therefore, felt more fear. The two main things
he was waiting for were coming perceptibly within
reach: to reach the saturation point of terror and
the culminating moment of the alcohol. Then, action
and escape !

MAX HENSIG 115

Gradually, thus, as he listened and wrote, he
passed from the stage of stupid, negative terror into
that of active, positive terror. The alcohol kept
driving hotly at those hidden centres of imagination
within, which, once touched, begin to reveal ; in
other :words, he became observant, critical, alert.
Swiftly the power grew. His lucidity increased till
he became almost conscious of the workings of the
other man’s mind, and it was like sitting opposite a
clock whose wheels and needles he could just hear
clicking. His eyes seemed to spread their power of
vision all over his skin ; he could see what was going
on without actually looking. In the same way he
heard all that passed in the room without turning
his head. Every moment he became clearer in
mind. He almost touched clairvoyance. The pre-
sentiment earlier in the evening that this stage would
come was at last being actually fulfilled.

From time to time he sipped his whisky, but more
cautiously than at first, for he knew that this keen
psychical activity was the forerunner of helpless
collapse. Only for a minute or two would he be at
the top of his power. The frontier wasa dreadfully
narrow one, and already he had lost control of his
fingers, and was scrawling a shortland that bore no
resemblance to the original system of its inventor.

As the white light of this abnormal perceptiveness
increased, the horror of his position became likewise
more and more vivid. He knew that he was fight-
ing for his life with a soulless and malefic being who
was next door to a devil. The sense of fear was
being magnified now with every minute that passed.

116 MAX HENSIG

Presently the power of perceiving would pass into
doing ; he would strike the blow for his life, what-
ever form that blow might take.

Already he was sufficiently master of himself to
act—to act in the sense of deceiving. He exaggerated
his drunken writing and thickness of speech, his
general condition of collapse ; and this power of
hearing the workings of the other man’s mind
showed him that he was successful. Hensig wasa
little deceived. He proved this by increased care-
lessness, and by allowing the expression of his face
to become plainly exultant.

Williams’s faculties were so concentrated upon the
causes operating in the terrible personality opposite
to him, that he could spare no part of his brain for
the explanations and sentences that came from his
lips. He did not hear or understand a hundredth
part of what the doctor was saying, but occasionally
he caught up the end of a phrase and managed to
ask a blundering question out of it; and Hensig,
obviously pleased with his increasing obfuscation,
always answered at some length, quietly watching
with pleasure the reporter’s foolish hieroglyphics
upon the paper.

The whole thing, of course, was an utter blind.
Hensig had no discovery at all. He was talking
scientific jargon, knowing full well that those short-
hand notes would never be transcribed, and that he
himself would be out of harm’s way long before his
victim’s senses had cleared sufficiently to tell him
that he was in the grasp of a deadly sickness which
no medicines could prevent ending in death.

—

} MAX HENSIG t17

Williams saw and felt all this clearly. It somehow
came to him, rising up in that clear depth of his
mind that was stirred by the alcohol, and yet beyond
the reach, so far, of its deadly confusion. He under-
stood perfectly well that Hensig was waiting for a
moment to act; that he would do nothing violent,
but would carry out his murderous intention in such
an innocent way that the victim would have no
suspicions at the moment, and would only realise
later that he had been poisoned and——

Hark! What was that? There was a change.
Something had happened. It was like the sound of a
gong, and the reporter’s fear suddenly doubled. Hen-
sig’s scheme had moved forward a step. There was
no sound actually, but his senses seemed grouped
together into one, and for some reason his perception
of the change came by way of audition. Fear
brimmed up perilously near the breaking point.
But the moment for action had not quite come yet,
and he luckily saved himself by the help of another
and contrary emotion. He emptied his glass,
spilling half of it purposely over his coat, and burst
out laughing in Hensig’s face. The vivid picture
rose before him of Whitey Fife catching cocktail
glasses off the edge of Steve Brodie’s table.

The laugh was admirably careless and drunken,
but the German was startled and looked up sus-
piciously. He had not expected this, and through
lowered eyelids Williams observed an expression
of momentary uncertainty on his features, as though
he felt he was not absolutely master of the situation
after all, as he imagined,

a

118 MAX HENSIG

“Su’nly thought of Whitey Fife knocking Steve-
brodie off’sh Brooklyn Bridsh in a co—cock’tail
glashh——” Williams explained in a voice hope-
lessly out of control. “ You know Whhhiteyfife, of
coursh, don’t you ?—ha, ha, ha!”

Nothing could have helped him more in putting
Hensig off the scent. His face resumed its expres-
sion of certainty and cold purpose. The waiter,
wakened by the noise, stirred uneasily in his chair,
and the big man in the corner indulged in a gulp
that threatened to choke himas he sat with his head
sunk upon his chest. But otherwise the empty room
became quiet again. The German resumed his con-
fident command of the situation. Williams, he saw,
was drunk enough to bring him easily into his net.

None the less, the reporter’s perception had not
been at fault. There was a change. Hensig was
about to do something, and his mind was buzzing
with preparations.

The victim, now within measuring distance of his
supreme moment—the point where terror would
release his will, and alcohol would inspire him
beyond possibility of error—saw everything as in
the clear light of day. Small things led him to the
climax: the emptied room; the knowledge that
shortly the saloon would close; the grey light of
day stealing under the chinks of door and shutter ;
the increased vileness of the face gleaming at him
opposite in the paling gas glare. Ugh! how the
air reeked of stale spirits, the fumes of cigar smoke,
and the cheap scents of the vanished women. The
floor was strewn with sheets of paper, absurdly

~

MAX HENSIG 119

scrawled over. The table had patches of wet, and
cigarette ashes lay over everything. His hands and
feet were icy, his eyes burning hot. His heart
thumped like a soft hammer.

Hensig was speaking in quite a changed voice
now. He had been leading up to this point for
hours, No one was there to see, even if anything
was to be seen—which was unlikely. The big man
still snored; the waiter was asleep too. There was
silence in the outer room, and between the walls of
the inner there was—Death.

“Now, Mr. Vulture reporder, I show you what I
mean all this time to egsplain,” he was saying in his
most metallic voice.

He drew a blank sheet of the reporter’s paper
towards him across the little table, avoiding care-
fully the wet splashes.

“Lend me your bencil von moment, please.
mest

Williams, simulating almost total collapse,
dropped the pencil and shoved it over the polished
wood as though the movement was about all he could
manage. With his head sunk forward upon his
chest he watched stupidly. Hensig began to draw
some kind of outline; his touch was firm, and
there was a smile on his lips.

“Here, you see, is the human arm,” he said,
sketching rapidly ; “and here are the main nerves,
and here the artery. Now, my discovery, as I haf
peen egsplaining to you, is simply” He dropped
into a torrent of meaningless scientific phrases,
during which the other purposely allowed his hand

120 MAX HENSIG

to lie relaxed upon the table, knowing perfectly
well that in a moment Hensig would seize it—for
the purposes of illustration.

His terror was so intense that, for the first time
this awful night, he was within an ace of action.
The point of saturation had been almost reached.
Though apparently sodden drunk, his mind was
really at the highest degree of clear perception and
judgment, and in another moment—the moment
Hensig actually began his final assault—the terror
would provide the reporter with the extra vigour
and decision necessary to strike his one blow.
Exactly how he would do it, or what precise form
it would take, he had no idea; that could be left to
the inspiration of the moment; he only knew that
his strength would last just long enough to bring
this about, and that then he would collapse in utter
intoxication upon the floor.

Hensig dropped the pencil suddenly : it clattered
away to a corner of the room, showing it had been
propelled with force, not merely allowed to fall, and
he made no attempt to pick it up. Williams, to
test his intention, made a pretended movement to
stoop after it, and the other, as he imagined he
would, stopped him in a second.

“T haf another,” he said quickly, diving into his
inner pocket and producing a long dark pencil.
Williams saw in a flash, through his half-closed
eyes, that it was sharpened at one end, while the
other end was covered by.a little protective cap of
transparent substance like glass, a third of an inch
long, He heard it click as it struck a button of the

MAX HENSIG 121

coat, and also saw thai bya very swift motion of the
fingers, impossible to be observed by a drunken man,
Hensig removed the cap so that the end was free.
Something gleamed there for a moment, something
like a point of shining metal—the point of a pin.

‘Gif me your hand von minute and I drace the
nerve up the arm I speak apout,” the doctor con-
tinued in that steely voice that showed no sign of
nervousness, though he was on the edge of murder.
“So, I show you much petter vot I mean.”

Without a second’s hesitation—for the moment
for action had not quite come—he lurched forward
and stretched his arm clumsily across the table.
Hensig seized the fingers in his own and turned the
palm uppermost.;- With his other hand he pointed
the pencil at the wrist, and began moving it a little
up towards the elbow, pushing the sleeve back for
the purpose. His touch was the touch of death.
On the point of the black pin, engrafted into the other
end of the pencil, Williams knew there clung the
germs of some deadly disease, germs unusually
powerful from special culture; and that within the
next few seconds the pencil would turn and the pin
would accidentally scratch his wrist and let the
virulent poison into his blood.

He knew this, yet at the same time he managed
to remain master of himself. For he also realised
that at last, just in the nick of time, the moment he
had been waiting for all through these terrible hours
had actually arrived, and he was ready to act.

And the little unimportant detail that furnished
the extra quota of fear necessary to bring him to

122 MAX HENSIG

this point was—iouch. It was the touch of Hensig’s
hand that did it, setting every nerve a-quiver to its
utmost capacity, filling him with a black horror that
reached the limits of sensation.

In that moment Williams regained his self-control
and became absolutely sober. Terror removed its
paralysing inhibitions, having led him to the point
where numbness succeeds upon excess, and sensa-
tion ceases to register in the brain. The emotion
of fear was dead, and he was ready to act with all
the force of his being—that force, too, raised to a
higher power after long repression.

Moreover, he could make no mistake, for at the
same time he had reached the culminating effect of
the alcohol, and a sort of white light filled his mind,
showing him clearly what to do and how to do it.
He felt master of himself, confident, capable of
anything. He followed blindly that inner guidance
he had been dimly conscious of the whole night,
and what he did he did instinctively, as it were,
without deliberate plan.

He was waiting for the pencil to turn so that the
pin pointed at his vein. Then, when Hensig was
wholly concentrated upon the act of murder, and
thus oblivious of all else, he would find his oppor-
tunity. For at this supreme moment the German’s
mind would be focussed on the one thing. He would
notice nothing else round him. He would be open
to successful attack. But this supreme moment
would hardly last more than five seconds at most !

The reporter raised his eyes and stared for the
first time steadily into his opponent’s eyes, till the

MAX HENSIG 123

rooin faded out and he saw only the white skin in a
blaze of its own light. Thus staring, he caught in
himself the full stream of venom, hatred, and
revenge that had been pouring at him across the
table for so long—caught and held it for one instant,
and then returned it into the other’s brain with all
its original force and the added impetus of his own
recovered will behind it.

Hensig felt this, and for a moment seemed to
waver; he was surprised out of himself by the
sudden change in his victim’s attitude. The same
instant, availing himself of a diversion caused by
the big man in the corner waking noisily and trying
to rise, he slowly turned the pencil round so that the
point of the pin was directed at the hand lying in
his; The sleepy waiter was helping the drunken
man to cross to the door, and the diversion was all
in his favour: ‘

But Williams knew what he was domg: He did
not even tremble.

“When that pin scratches me,” he said aloud in
a firm, sober voice, “it means—death.”

The German could not conceal his surprise on
hearing the change of voice, but he st#ll felt sure of
his victim, and clearly wished to enjoy his revenge
thoroughly. After a moment’s hesitation he replied,
speaking very low:

“You tried, I tink, to get me conficted, and now
I punish you, dat is all.”

His fingers moved, and the point of the pin
descended a little lower. Williams felt the faintest
imaginable prick on his skin—or thought he did,

124 MAX HENSIG

The German had lowered his head again to direct
the movement of the pin properly. But the moment
of Hensig’s concentration was also the moment of
his own attack. And it had come.

“But the alcohol will counteract it!” he burst
out, with a loud and startling laugh that threw the
other completely off his guard, The doctor lifted
his face in amazement. That same instant the hand
that lay so helplessly and tipsily in his turned like a
flash of lightning, and, before he knew what had
happened, their positions were reversed, Williams
held his wrist, pencil and all, in a grasp of iron.
And from the reporter’s other hand the German
received a terrific smashing blow in the face that
broke his glasses and dashed oe back with a howl
of pain against the wall.

There was a brief passage of scramble and wild
blows, during which both table and chairs were
sent flying, and then Williams was aware that a
figure behind him had stretched forth an arm and
was holding a bright silvery thing close to Hensig’s
bleeding face. Another glance showed him that it~
was a pistol, and that the man holding it was the big
drunken man who had apparently slept all night in
the corner of the room. Then, in a flash, he recog-
nised him as Dowling’s partner—a headquarters
detective.

The reporter stepped back, his head swimming
again. He was very unsteady on his feet.

“lve been watching your game all the evening,”
he heard the headquarters man saying as he slipped
the handcuffs over the German’s unresisting wrists,

MAX HENSIG 126

“We have been on your trail for weeks, and I might
jest as soon have taken you when you left the
Brooklyn church a few hours ago, only I wanted to
see what you were up to—see? You're wanted in
Berlin for one or two little dirty tricks, but our
advices only came last night. Come along now.”

“You'll get nozzing,” Hensig replied very quietly,
wiping his bloody face with the corner of his sleeve.
“See, I have scratched myself!”

The detective took no notice of this remark, not
understanding it, probably, but Williams noticed
the direction of the eyes, and saw a scratch on his
wrist, slightly bleeding. Then he understood that
in the struggle the pin had accidentally found
another destination than the one intended for it.

But he remembered nothing more after that, for
the reaction set in with a rush. The strain of that
awful night left him utterly limp, and the accumu-
lated effect of the alcohol, now that all was past,
overwhelmed him like a wave, and he sank in a heap
upon the floor, unconscious.

& * * * *

The illness that followed was simply “ nerves,”
and he got over it in a week or two, and returned to
his work on the paper. He at once made inquiries,
and found that Hensig’s arrest had hardly been
noticed by the papers. There was no interesting
feature about it, and New York was already in the
throes of a new horror.

But Dowling, that enterprising Irishman—always
with an eye to promotion and the main chance—
Dowling had something to say about it.

126 MAX HENSIG

“No luck, Mr. English,” he said ruefully, “no
luck at all. It would have been a mighty good
story, but it never got im the papers. That damned
German, Schmidt, alias Brunner, alias Hensig, died
in the prison hospital before we could even get him
remanded for further inquiries s

“ What did he die of ?” interrupted the reporter
quickly.

“Black typhus, I think they call it. But it was
terribly swift, and he was dead in four days. The
doctor said he’d never known such a case.”

“l’m glad he’s out of the way,” observed
Williams.

“Well, yes,” Dowling said hesitatingly ; “but it
was a jim dandy of a story, an’ he might have
waited a little bit longer jest so as I got something
out of it for meself,”

THE WILLOWS

AFTER leaving Vienna, and long before you come to
Buda-Pesth, the Danube enters a region of singular
loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread
away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and
the country becomes a swamp for miles upon miles,
covered by a vast sea of low willow-bushes. On the
big maps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy blue,
growing fainter in colour as it leaves the banks, and
across it may be seen in large straggling letters the
word Siimpfe, meaning marshes.

In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle-
beds, and willow-grown islands is almost topped by
the water, but in normal seasons the bushes bend
and rustle in the free winds, showing their silver
leaves to the sunshine in an ever-moving plain of
bewildering beauty. These willows never attain to
the dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks;
they remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and
soft outline, swaying on slender stems that answer
to the least pressure of the wind ; supple as grasses,
and so continually shifting that they somehow give
the impression that the entire plain is moving and
alive. For the wind sends waves rising and falling
over the whole surface, waves of leaves instead of

4

128 THE WILLOWS

waves of water, green swells like the sea, too, until
the branches turn and lift, and then silvery white as
their under-side turns to the sun.

Happy to slip beyond the control of stern banks,
the Danube here wanders about at will among the
intricate network of channels intersecting the islands
everywhere with broad avenues down which the
waters pour with a shouting sound; making whirl-
pools, eddies, and foaming rapids; tearing at the
sandy banks; carrying away masses of shore and
willow-clumps ; and forming new islands innumer-
able which shift daily in size and shape and possess
at best an impermanent life, since the flood-time
obliterates their very existence.

Properly speaking, this fascinating part of the
river’s life begins soon after leaving Pressburg, and
we, in our Canadian canoe, with gipsy tent and
frying-pan on board, reached it on the crest of a
rising flood about mid-July. That very same
morning, when the sky was reddening before sunrise,
we had slipped swiftly through still-sleeping Vienna,
leaving it a couple of hours later a mere patch of
smoke against the blue hills of the Wienerwald on
the horizon; we had breakfasted below k ischeramend
under a grove of birch trees roaring in the wind;
and had then swept on the tearing current past Orth,
Hainburg, Petronell (the old Roman Carnuntum of
Marcus Aurelius), and so under the frowning heights
of Theben on a spur of the Carpathians, where the
March steals in quietly from the left and the frontier
is crossed between Austria and Hungary. |

Racing along at twelve kilometres an hour soon

|

THE WILLOWS 129

took us well into Hungary, and the muddy waters—
sure sign of flood—sent us aground on many a
shingle-bed, and twisted us like a cork in many
a sudden belching whirlpool before the towers of
Pressburg (Hungarian, Poszény) showed against
the sky; and then the canoe, leaping like a spirited
horse, flew at top speed under the grey walls,
negotiated safely the sunken chain of the Fliegende
Bricke ferry, turned the corner sharply to the left,
and plunged on yellow foam into the wilderness of
islands, sand-banks, and swamp-land beyond—the
land of the willows.

The change came suddenly, as when a series of
bioscope pictures snaps down on the streets of a
town and shifts without warning into the scenery of
lake and forest. We entered the land of desolation
on wings, and in less than half an hour there was
neither boat nor fishing-hut nor red roof, nor any
single sign of human habitation and civilisation
within sight. The sense of remoteness from the
world of human kind, the utter isolation, the fascina-
tion of this singular world of willows, winds, and
waters, instantly laid its spell upon us both, so that we
allowed laughingly to one another that we ought by
rights to have held some special kind of passport to
admit us, and that we had, somewhat audaciously,
come without asking leave into a separate little
kingdom of wonder and magic—a kingdom that was
reserved for the use of others who had a right to it,
with everywhere unwritten warnings to trespassers
for those who had the imagination to discover
them,

|

130 THE WILLOWS

Though still early in the afternoon, the ceaseless
_ buffetings of a most tempestuous wind made us feel
weary, and we at once began casting about for a
suitable camping-ground for the night. But the
bewildering character of the islands made landing
difficult ; the swirling flood carried us in-shore and
then swept us out again; the willow branches
tore our hands as we seized them to stop the canoe,
and we pulled many a yard of sandy bank into the
water before at length we shot with a great sideways
blow from the wind into a backwater and managed to
beach the bows in a cloud of spray. Then we lay
panting and laughing after our exertions on hot
yellow sand, sheltered from the wind, and in the full
blaze of a scorching sun, a cloudless blue sky above,
and an immense army of dancing, shouting willow
bushes, closing in from all sides, shining with spray
and clapping their thousand little hands as though to
applaud the success of our efforts.

“ What ariver !” I said to my companion, thinking
of all the way we had travelled from the source in
the Black Forest, and how we had often been obliged
to wade and push in the upper shallows at the
beginning of June. ®

‘“‘Won’t stand much nonsense now, will it ?” he
said, pulling the canoe a little farther into safety
up the sand, and then composing himself for a
nap.

I lay by his side, happy and peaceful in the bath
of the elements—water, wind, sand, and the great
fire of the sun—thinking of the long journey that
lay behind us, and of the great stretch before us to

\ THE WILLOWS 131

the Black Sea, and how lucky I was to have
such a delightful and charming travelling companion
as my friend, the Swede.

We had made many similar journeys together,
but the Danube, more than any other river I knew,
impressed us from the very beginning with its
aliveness. From its tiny bubbling entry into the
world among the pinewood gardens of Donau-
eschingen, until this moment when it began to play
the great river-game of losing itself among the
deserted swamps, unobserved, unrestrained, it had
seemed to us like following the growth of some
living creature. Sleepy at first, but later developing
violent desires as it became conscious of its deep
soul, it rolled, like some huge fluid being, through
all the countries we had passed, holding our little
craft on its mighty shoulders, playing roughly with
us sometimes, yet always friendly and well-meaning,
till at length we had come inevitably to regard it as
a Great Personage.

How, indeed, could it be otherwise, since it told
us so much of its secret life? At night we heard it
singing to the moon as we lay in our tent, uttering
that odd sibilant note peculiar to itself and said to be
caused by the rapid tearing of the pebbles along its
bed, so great is its hurrying speed. We knew, too,
the voice of its gurgling whirlpools, suddenly
bubbling up on a surface previously quite calm ;
the roar of its shallows and swift rapids; its con-
stant steady thundering below all mere surface
sounds; and that ceaseless tearing of its icy waters
at the banks. How it stood up and shouted when

132 THE WILLOWS

the rains fell flatuponitsface! And howits laughter
roared out when the wind blew upstream and tried
to stop its growing speed! We knew all its sounds
and voices, its tumblings and foamings, its un-
necessary splashing against the bridges; that self-
conscious chatter when there were hills to look on ;
the affected dignity of its speech when it passed
through the little towns, far too important to laugh ;
and all these faint, sweet whisperings when the sun
caught it fairly in some slow curve and pouty down
upon it till the steam rose.

It was full of tricks, too, in its early life before ie
great world knewit. There were places in the upper
reaches among the Swabian forests, when yet the
first whispers of its destiny had not reached it,
where it elected to disappear through holes in the
ground, to appear again on the other side of the
porous limestone hills and start a new river with
another name ; leaving, too, so little water in its own
bed that we had to climb out and wade and push the
canoe through miles of shallows!

And a chief pleasure, in those early days of its
irresponsible youth, was to lie low, like Brer Fox,
just before the little turbulent tributaries came to
join it from the Alps, and to refuse to acknowledge
them when in, but to run for miles side by side, the
dividing line well marked, the very levels different,
the Danube utterly declining to recognise the new-
comer. Below Passau, however, it gave up this
particular trick, for there the Inn comes in witha
thundering power impossible to ignore, and so
pushes and incommodes the parent river that there

THE WILLOWS 133

is hardly room for them in the long twisting gorge

that follows, and the Danube is shoved this way and

that against the cliffs,and forced to hurry itself with

great waves and much dashing to and fro in order

to get through in time. And during the fight our -
canoe slipped down from its shoulder to its breast,

and had the time of its life among the struggling

waves. But the Inn taught the old river a lesson,

and after Passau it no longer pretended to ignor¢

new arrivals.

This was many days back, of course, and since
then we had come to know other aspects of the
great creature, and across the Bavarian wheat plain
of Straubing she wandered so slowly under the blaz-
ing June sun that we could well imagine only the
surface inches were water, while below there moved,
concealed as by a silken mantle, a whole army
of Undines, passing silently and unseen down to
the sea, and very leisurely too, lest they be dis-
covered.

Much, too, we forgave her because of her friend-
liness to the birds and animals that haunted the
shores. Cormorants lined the banks in lonely places
in rows like short black palings; grey crows crowded
the shingle beds ; storks stood fishing in the vistas of
shallower water that opened up between the islands,
and hawks, swans, and marsh birds of all sorts filled
the air with glinting wings and singing, petulant
cries. It was impossible to feel annoyed with the
river's vagaries after seeing a deer leap with a splash
into the water at sunrise and swim past the bows of
the canoe; and often we saw fawns peering at us

134 THE WILLOWS

from the underbrush, or looked straight into the
brown eyes of a stag as we charged full tilt round a
corner and entered another reach of the river.
Foxes, too, everywhere haunted the banks, tripping
daintily among the driftwood and disappearing so
suddenly that it was impossible to see how they
managed it.

But now, after leaving Pressburg, everything
changed a little, and the Danube became more
serious. It ceased trifling. It was half-way to the
Black Sea, within scenting distance almost of other,
stranger countries where no tricks would be per-
mitted or understood. It became suddenly grown-
up, and claimed our respect and even our awe. It
broke out into three arms, for one thing, that only
met again a hundred kilometres farther down, and
for a canoe there were no indications which one was
intended to be followed.

“If you take a side channel,” said the Hungarian
officer we met in the Pressburg shop while buying
provisions, “ you may find yourselves, when the flood
subsides, forty miles from anywhere, high and dry,
and you may easily starve. There are no people, no
farms, no fishermen. I warn you not to continue.
The river, too, is still rising, and this wind will
increase.”

The rising river did not alarm us in the least, but
the matter of being left high and dry by a sudden
subsidence of the waters might be serious, and we
had consequently laid in an extra stock of pro-
visions. For the rest, the officer’s prophecy held
true, and the wind, blowing down a perfectly clear

a

THE WILLOWS 135

Sky, increased steadily till it reached the dignity of a
westerly gale.

It was earlier than usual when we camped, for the
sun was a good hour or two from the horizon, and
leaving my friend still asleep on the hot sand, I wan-
dered about in desultory examination of our hotel.
The island, I found, was less than an acre in extent,
a mere sandy bank standing some two or three feet
above the level of the river. The far end, pointing
into the sunset, was covered with flying spray which
the tremendous wind drove off the crests of the
broken waves. It was triangular in shape, with the
apex up stream.

I stood there for several minutes, watching the
impetuous crimson flood bearing down with a shout-
ing roar, dashing in waves against the bank as though
to sweep it bodily away, and then swirling by in two
foaming streams on either side. The ground seemed
to shake with the shock and rush, while the furious
movement of the willow bushes as the wind poured
over them increased the curious illusion that the
island itself actually moved. Above, for a mile or
two, I could see the great river descending upon me:
it was like looking up the slope of a sliding hill, white
with foam, and leaping up everywhere to show itself
to the sun.

The rest of the island was too thickly grown with
willows to make walking pleasant, but I made the
tour, nevertheless. From the lower end the light,
of course, changed, and the river looked dark and
angry. Only the backs of the flying waves were
visible, streaked with foam, and pushed forcibly by

136 THE WILLOWS

the great puffs of wind that fell upon them from
behind. Fora short mile it was visible, pouring in
and out among the islands, and then disappearing
with a huge sweep into the willows, which closed
about it like a herd of monstrous antediluvian
creatures crowding down to drink. They made me
think of gigantic sponge-like growths that sucked the
river up into themselves. They caused it to vanish
from sight. They herded there together in such
overpowering numbers.

Altogether it was an impressive scene, with its
utter loneliness, its bizarre suggestion; and as I
gazed, long and curiously, a singular emotion began
to stir somewhere in the depths of me. Midway in
my delight of the wild beauty, there crept, unbidden
and unexplained, a curious feeling of disquietude,
almost of alarm.

A rising river, perhaps, always suggests something
of the ominous: many of the little islands I saw
before me would probably have been swept away by
the morning; this resistless, thundering flood of
water touched the sense of awe. Yet I was aware
that my uneasiness lay deeper far than the emotions
of awe and wonder. It was not thatI felt. Nor had
it directly to do with the power of the driving wind
—this shouting hurricane that might almost carry up
a few acres of willows into the air and scatter them
like so much chaff over the landscape. The wind
was simply enjoying itself, for nothing rose out of
the flat landscape to stop it, and I was conscious of
sharing its great game with a kind of pleasurable ex-
citement. Yet thisnovel emotion had nothing todo

THE WILLOWS 137

with the wind. Indeed, so vague was the sense of
distress I experienced, that it was impossible to trace
it to its source and deal with it accordingly, though
I was aware somehow that it had to do with my
realisation of our utter insignificance before this
unrestrained power of the elements about me.
The huge-grown river had something to do with
it too—a vague, unpleasant idea that we had some-
how trifled with these great elemental forces in
whose power we lay helpless every hour of the day
and night. For here, indeed, they were gigantic-
ally at play together, and the sight appealed to the
imagination.

But my emotion, so far as I could understand it,
seemed to attach itself more particularly to the willow
bushes, to these acres and acres of willows, crowding,
so thickly growing there, swarming everywhere the
eye could reach, pressing upon the river as though
to suffocate it, standing in dense array mile after mile
beneath the sky, watching, waiting, listening. And,
apart quite from the elements, the willows connected
themselves subtly with my malaise, attacking the
mind insidiously somehow by reason of their vast
numbers, and contriving in some way or other to
represent to the imagination a new and mighty
power, a power, moreover, not altogether friendly
to us.

Great revelations of nature, of course, never fail
to impress in one way or another, and I was no
stranger to moods of the kind. Mountains overawe
and oceans terrify, while the mystery of great forests
exercises a spell peculiarly its own. But all these,

138 fHE WILLOWS

at one point or another, somewhere link on inti-
mately with human life and human experience. They
stir comprehensible, even if alarming, emotions.
They tend on the whole to exalt.

With this multitude of willows, however, it was
something far different, I felt. Some essence ema-
nated from them that besieged the heart. A sense of
awe awakened, true, but of awe touched somewhere
by a vague terror. Their serried ranks, growing
everywhere darker about me as the shadows deep-
ened, moving furiously yet softly in the wind, woke
in me the curious and unwelcome suggestion that
we had trespassed here upon the borders of an alien
world, a world where we were intruders, a world
where we were not wanted or invited to remain—
where we ran grave risks perhaps !

The feeling, however, though it refused to yield
its meaning entirely to analysis, did not at the time
trouble me by passing into menace. Yet it never
left me quite, even during the very practical business
of putting up the tent in a hurricane of wind and
building a fire for the stew-pot. It remained, just
enough to bother and perplex, and to rob a most
delightful camping-ground of a good portion of its
charm. To my companion, however, I said nothing,
for he was a man I considered devoid of imagination.
In the first place, I could never have explained to
him what I meant, and in the second, he would
have laughed stupidly at me if I had.

There was a slight depression in the centre of
the island, and here we pitched the tent. The
surrounding willows broke the wind a bit.

THE WILLOWS 139

“A poor camp,” observed the imperturbable
Swede when at last the tent stood upright; “no
stones and precious little firewood. I’m for moving
on early to-morrow—eh ? This sand won't holp
anything.”

But the experience of a collapsing tent at mid-
night had taught us many devices, and we made the
cosy gipsy house as safe as possible, and then set
about collecting a store of wood to last till bed-
time. Willow bushes drop no branches, and drift-
wood was our only source of supply. We hunted
the shores pretty thoroughly. Everywhere the
banks were crumbling as the rising flood tore at
them and carried away great portions with a splash
and a gurgle.

“ The island’s much smaller than when we landed,”
said the accurate Swede. “It won’t last long at this
rate, We'd better drag the canoe close to the tent,
and be ready to start a moment’s notice. J shall
sleep in my clothes.”

He was a little distance off, climbing along the
bank, and I heard his rather jolly laugh as he
spoke.

“By Jove!” I heard him call, a moment later,
and turned to see what had caused his exclamation.
But for the moment he was hidden by the willows,
and I could not find him.

“What in the world’s this?” I heard him cry
again, and this time his voice had become serious,

I ran up quickly and joined him on the bank. He
was looking over the.river, pointing at something in
the water.

/

140 THE WILLOWS

“Good Heavens, it’s a man’s body!” he cried
excitedly. “Look!”

A black thing, turning over and over in the foam-
ing waves, Swept rapidly past. It kept disappearing
and coming up to the surface again. It was about
twenty feet from the shore, and just as it was
opposite to where we stood it lurched round and
looked straight at us. We saw its eyes reflecting
the sunset, and gleaming an odd yellow as the body
turned over. Then it gave a swift, gulping plunge,
and dived out of sight in a flash.

“An otter, by gad!” we eyexclaumed in the same
breath, laughing.

It was an otter, alive, and out on the hunt; yet it
had looked exactly like the body of a dpoweed man
turning helplessly in the current. Far below it
came to the surface once again, and we saw its black
skin, wet and shining in the sunlight.

Then, too, just as we turned back, our arms full
of driftwood, another thing happened to recall us
to the river bank. This time it really was a man,
and what was more, a man in a boat. Nowa small
boat on the Danube was an unusual sight at any
time, but here in this deserted region, and at flood
time, it was so unexpected as to constitute a real
event. We stood and stared.

Whether it was due to the slanting sunlight, or
the refraction fromthe wonderfully illumined water,
I cannot say, but, whatever the cause, I found it
difficult to focus my sight properly upon the flying
apparition. It seemed, however, to be aman stand-
ing upright in a sort of flat-bottomed boat, steering

THE WILLOWS 141

with a long oar,And being carried down the opposite
shore at a tremendous pace. He apparently was
looking across in our direction, but the distance
was too great and the light too uncertain for us to
make out very plainly what he was about. It seemed
to me that he was gesticulating and making signs at
us. His voice came across the water to us shouting
something furiously, but the wind drowned it so
that no single word was audible. There was some-
thing curious about the whole appearance—man,
boat, signs, voice—that made an impression on me
out of all proportion to its cause.

“He’s crossing himself!” I cried. ‘ Look, he’s
making the sign of the Cross !”

“T believe you're right,” the Swede said, shading
his eyes with his hand and watching the man out of
sight. He seemed to be gone in a moment, melting
away down there into the sea of willows where the
sun caught them in the bend of the river and turned
them into a great crimson wall of beauty. Mist,
too, had begun to rise, so that the air was hazy.

“ But what in the world is he doing at night-fall
on this flooded river?” I said, half to myself.
“ Where is he going at such a time, and what did he
mean by his signs and shouting ? D’you think he
wished to warn us about something ?”

“He saw our smoke, and thought we were spirits
probably,” laughed my companion. “These Hun-
garians believe in all sorts of rubbish : youremember |
the shopwoman at Pressburg warning us that no
one ever landed here because it belonged to some
sort of beings outside man’s world! I suppose they

142 THE WILLOWS

believe in fairies and elementals, possibly demons
too. That peasant in the boat saw people on the
islands for the first time in his life,” he added, after
a slight pause, “ and it scared him, that’s all.”

The Swede’s tonelof voice was not convincing, and
his manner lacked something that was usually
there. I noted the change instantly while he
talked, though without being able to label it pre
cisely.

“If they had enough imagination,” I laughed
loudly—I remember trying to make as much noise
as I could—‘ they might well people a place like
this with the old gods of antiquity. The Romans
must have haunted all this region more or less with
their shrines and sacred groves and elemental
deities.”

The subject dropped and we returned to our stew-
pot, for my friend was not given to imaginative con-
versation asarule. Moreover, just then I remember
feeling distinctly glad that he was not imaginative ;
his stolid, practical nature suddenly seemed to me
welcome and comforting. It was an admirable
temperament, I felt: he could steer down rapids
like a red Indian, shoot dangerous bridges and
whirlpools better than any white man I ever saw in
acanoe. He was a grand fellow for an adventurous
trip, a tower of strength when untoward things
happened. I looked at his strong face and light
curly hair as he staggered along under his pile of
driftwood (twice the size of mine !), and I experienced
a feeling of relief. Yes, I was distinctly glad just
then that the Swede was—what he was, and that he

THE WILLOWS 143
never made remarks that suggested more than they
Said.

“The river's still rising, though,” he added, as if
following out some thoughts of his own, and drop-
ping his load with a gasp. “This island will be
under water in two days if it goes on.”

“TI wish the wind would go down,” I said, “1
don’t care a fig for the river.”

The flood, indeed, had no terrors for us; we
could get off at ten minutes’ notice, and the more
water the better we liked it. It meant an increasing
current and the obliteration of the treacherous
shingle-beds that so often threatened to tear the
bottom out of our canoe.

Contrary to our expectations, the wind did not go
down with the sun. It seemed to increase with
the darkness, howling overhead and shaking the
willows round us like straws. Curious sounds ac-
companied it sometimes, like the explosion of heavy
guns, and it fell upon the water and the island in
great flat blows of immense power, It made me
think of the sounds a planet must make, could we
only hear it, driving along through space.

But the sky kept wholly clear of clouds, and soon
after supper the full moon rose up in the east and
covered the river and the plain of shouting willows
with a light like the day.

We lay on the sandy patch beside the fire, smoking,
listening to the noises of the night round us, and
talking happily of the journey we had already made,
and of our plans ahead, The map lay spread in the
door of the tent, but the high wind made it hard to

144 THE WILLOWS

study, and presently we lowered the curtain and
extinguished thelantern. The firelight was enough
to smoke and see each other's faces by, and the
sparks flew about overhead like fireworks. A few
yards beyond, the river gurgled and hissed, and from
time to time a heavy splash announced the falling
away of further portions of the bank.

Our talk, I noticed, had to do with the far-away
scenes and incidents of our first camps in the Black
Forest, or of other subjects altogether remote from
the present setting, for neither of us spoke of the
actual moment more than was necessary—almost
as though we had agreed tacitly to avoid discussion
of the camp and its incidents. Neither the otter
nor the boatman, for instance, received the honour
of a single mention, though ordinarily these would
have furnished discussion for the greater part of the
evening. They were, of course, distinct events in
such a place.

The scarcity of wood made it a business to keep
the fire going, for the wind, that drove the smoke in
our faces wherever we sat, helped at the same time
to make a forced draught. We took it in turn to
make foraging expeditions into the darkness, and the
quantity the Swede brought back always made me
feel that he took an absurdly long time finding it;
for the fact was I did not care much about being
left alone, and yet it always seemed to be my turn to
grub about among the bushes or scramble along
the slippery banks in the moonlight. The long day’s
battle with wind and water—such wind and such
water !—had tired us both, and an early bed was the

THE WILLOWS 148

obvious programme. Yet neither of us made the
move for the tent. We lay there, tending the fire,
talking in desultory fashion, peering about us into
the dense willow bushes, and listening to the thunder
of wind and river. The loneliness of the place had
entered our very bones, and silence seemed natural,
for after a bit the sound of our voices became a
trifle unreal and forced; whispering would have
been the fitting mode of communication, I felt, and
the human voice, always rather absurd amid the roar
of the elements, now carried with it something
almost illegitimate. It was like talking out loud in
church, or in some place where it was not lawful,
perhaps not quite safe, to be overheard.

The eeriness of this lonely island, set among a
million willows, swept by a hurricane, and sur-
rounded by hurrying deep waters, touched us both,
I fancy. Untrodden by man, almost unknown to
man, it lay there beneath the moon, remote from
human influence, on the frontier of another world,
an alien world, a world tenanted by willows only
and the souls of willows. And we, in our rashness,
had dared to invade it, even to make use of it!
Something more than the power of its mystery
stirred in me as I lay on the sand, feet to fire, and
peered up through the leaves at the stars. For the
last time I rose to get firewood.

“‘ When this has burnt up,” I said firmly, “I shall
turn in,” and my companion watched me lazily as I
moved off into the surrounding shadows.

For an unimaginative man I thought he seemed
unusually receptive that night, unusually open to

K

146 THE WILLOWS

suggestion of things other than sensory. He too
was touched by the beauty and loneliness of the
place. I was not altogether pleased, I remember, to
recognise this slight change in him, and instead of
immediately collecting sticks, 1 made my way to the
far point of the island where the moonlight on plain
and river could be seen to better advantage. The
desire to be alone had come suddenly upon me ; my
former dread returned in force; there was a vague
feeling in me I wished to face and probe to the
bottom.

When I reached the point of sand jutting ou
among the waves, the spell of the place descended
upon me with a positive shock. No mere “scenery”
could have produced such an effect. There was
something more here, something to alarm.

I gazed across the waste of wild waters; I watched
the whispering willows ; I heard the ceaseless beat-
ing of the tireless wind; and, one and all, each in
its own way, stirred in me this sensation of a strange
distress. But the willows especially: foreverthey went
on chattering and talking among themselves, laugh-
ing a little, shrilly crying out, sometimes sighing—
but what it was they made so much to-do about
belonged to the secret life of the great plain they
inhabited. And it was utterly alien to the world I
knew, or to that of the wild yet kindly elements.
They made me think of a host of beings from another
plane of life, another evolution altogether, perhaps,
all discussing a mystery known only to themselves.
I watched them moving busily together, oddly
shaking their big bushy heads, twirling their myriad

THE WILLOWS : 147

leaves even when there was no wind. They moved
of their own will as though alive, and they touched,
by some incalculable method, my own keen sense
of the horrible.

There they stood in the moonlight, like a vast
army surrounding our camp, shaking their innu-
merable silver spears defiantly, formed all ready for
an attack.

The psychology of places, for some imagina-
tions at least, is very vivid; for the wanderer,
especially, camps have their “note” either of wel-
come or rejection. At first it may not always be
apparent, because the busy preparations of tent and
cooking prevent, but with the first pause — after
supper usually—it comes and announces itself,
And the note of this willow-camp now became
unmistakably plain to me: we were interlopers,
trespassers ; we were not welcomed. The sense of
unfamiliarity grew upon me as I stood there watch-
ing. We touched the frontier of a region where
our presence was resented. Fora night’s lodging
we might perhaps be tolerated ; but for a prolonged
and inquisitive stay—No ! by all the gods of the
trees and the wilderness, no! We were the first
human influences upon this island, and we were not
wanted. The willows were against us.

Strange thoughts like these, bizarre fancies, borne
I know not whence, found lodgment in my mind as
I stood listening. What, I thought, if, after all,
these crouching willows proved to be alive; if
suddenly they should rise up, like a swarm of living
creatures, marshalled by the gods whose territory we

148 THE WILLOWS

had invaded, sweep towards us off the vast swamps,
booming overhead in the night—and then settle
down! As I looked it was so easy to imagine they
actually moved, crept nearer, retreated a little,
huddled together in masses, hostile, waiting for the
great wind that should finally start them a-running.
I could have sworn their aspect changed a little,
and their ranks deepened and pressed more closely
together.

The melancholy shrill cry of a night-bird sounded
overhead, and suddenly I nearly lost my balance as
the piece of bank I stood upon fell with a great
splash into the river, undermined by the flood, I
stepped back just in time, and went on hunting for
firewood again, half laughing at the odd fancies that
crowded so thickly into my mind and cast their spell
upon me. I recalled the Swede’s remark about
moving on next day, and I was just thinking that I
fully agreed with him, when I turned with a start.and
saw the subject of my thoughts standing imme-
diately in front of me. He was quite close. The
roar of the elements had covered his approach.

“You've been gone so long,” he shouted above
the wind, “I thought something must have happened
to you.”

But there was that in his tone, and a certain look
in his face as well, that conveyed to me more than
his actual words, and in a flash I understood the
real reason for his coming. It was because the spell
of the place had entered his soul too, and he did
not like being alone.

“River still rising,” he cried, pointing to the

(

THE WILLOWS 149

flood in the moonlight, “and the wind’s simply
awful.”

He always said the same things, but it was the
cry for companionship that gave the real importance
to his words.

“ Lucky,” I cried back, “our tent’s in the hollow.
I think itll hold all right.” I added something about
the difficulty of finding wood, in order to explain
my absence, but the wind caught my words and
flung them across the river, so that he did not hear,
but just looked at me through the branches, nodding
his head.

“Lucky if we get away without disaster!” he
shouted, or words to that effect ; and 1 remember
feeling half angry with him for putting the thought
into words, for it was exactly what I felt myself.
There was disaster impending somewhere, and the
sense of presentiment lay unpleasantly upon me.

We went back to the fire and made a final blaze,
poking it up with our feet. We took a Jast look round.
But for the wind the heat would have been un-
pleasant. I put this thought into words, and I
remember my friend’s reply struck me oddly: that
he would rather have the heat, the ordinary July
weather, than this “‘ diabolical wind.”

Everything was snug for the night; the canoe lying
turned over beside the tent, with both yellow paddles
beneath her; the provision sack hanging from a
willow-stem, and the washed-up dishes removed
to a safe distance from the fire, all ready for the
morning meal.

We smothered the embers of the fire with sand,

150 THE WILLOWS

and then turned in. The flap of the tent door was
up, and I saw the branches and the stars and the
white moonlight. The shaking willows and the
heavy buffetings of the wind against our taut little
house were the last things I remembered as sleep
came down and covered all with its soft and delicious
forgetfulness,

II

SUDDENLY I found myself lying awake, peering
from my sandy mattress through the door of the
tent. I looked at my watch pinned against the
canvas, and saw by the bright moonlight that it was .
past twelve o’clock—the threshold of a new day—
and I had therefore slept a couple of hours. The
Swede was asleep still beside me; the wind nowled
as before; something plucked at my heart and
made me feel afraid. There was a sense of distur-
bance in my immediate neighbourhood.

I sat up quickly and looked out. The trees were
swaying violently to and fro as the gusts smote them,
but our little bit of green canvas lay snugly safe in
the hollow, for the wind passed over it without
meeting enough resistance to make it vicious. The
feeling of disquietude did not pass, however, and I
crawled quietly out of the tent to see if our belong-
ings were safe. I moved carefully so as not to
waken my companion. A curious excitement was
on me.

I was half-way out, kneeling on all fours, when
my eye first took in that the tops of the bushes
opposite, with their moving tracery of leaves, made
shapes against the sky. I sat back on my haunches

152 THE WILLOWS

and stared. It was incredible, surely, but there,
opposite and slightly above me, were shapes of
some indeterminate sort among the willows, and as
the branches swayed in the wind they seemed to
group themselves about these shapes, forming a
series of monstrous outlines that shifted rapidly
beneath the moon. Close, about fifty feet in front
of me, I saw these things.

My first instinct was to waken my companion,
that he too might see them, but something made me
hesitate—the sudden realisation, probably, that I
should not welcome corroboration ; and meanwhile
I crouched there staring in amazement with smart-
ing eyes. I was wide awake. I remember saying
to myself that I was not dreaming.

They first became properly visible, these huge

gures, just within the tops of the bushes—immense,
bronze-coloured, moving, and wholly independent
of the swaying of the branches. I saw them plainly
and noted, now I came to examine them more
calmly, that they were very much larger than human,
and indeed that something in their appearance pro-
claimed them to be not human atall. Certainly they
were not merely the moving tracery of the branches
against the moonlight. They shifted independently.
They rose upwards in a continuous stream from
earth to sky, vanishing utterly as soon as they
reached the dark of the sky. They were interlaced
one with another, making a great column, and I
saw their limbs and huge bodies melting in and out
of each other, forming this serpentine line that bent
and swayed and twisted spirally with the contortions

THE WILLOWS 153

of the wind-tossed trees. They were nude, fluid
shapes, passing up the bushes, within the leaves
almost—rising up in a living column into the
heavens. Their faces I never could see. Unceas-
ingly they poured upwards, swaying in great bend-
ing curves, with a hue of dull bronze upon their
skins.

I stared, trying to force every atom of vision from
myeyes. Fora long time 1 thought they must every
moment disappear and resolve themselves into the
movements of the branches and prove to be an
optical illusion. I searched everywhere for a proof
of reality, when all the while I understood quite
well that the standard of reality had changed. For
the longer I looked the more certain I became that
these figures were real and living, though perhaps
not according to the standards that the camera and
the biologist would insist upon.

Far from feeling fear, I was possessed with a
sense of awe and wonder such as I have never
known. I seemed to be gazing at the personified
elemental forces of this haunted and primeval region.
Our intrusion had stirred the powers of the place
into activity. It was we who were the cause of the
disturbance, and my brain filled to bursting with
stories and legends of the spirits and deities of
places that have been acknowledged and worshipped
by men in all ages of the world’s history. But,
before I could arrive at any possible explanation,
something impelled me to go farther out, and I
crept forward on to the sand and stood upright. I
felt the ground still warm under my bare feet; the

154 THE WILLOWS

wind tore at my hair and face; and the sound of
the river burst upon my ears with a sudden roar.
These things, I knew, were real, and proved that my
senses were acting normally. Yet the figures still
rose from earth to heaven, silent, majestically, in a
great spiral of grace and strength that overwhelmed
me at length with a genuine deep emotion of wor-
ship. I felt that I must fall down and worship—
absolutely worship,

Perhaps in another minute I might have done
so, when a gust of wind swept against me with such
force that it blew me sideways, and I nearly stumbled
and fell. It seemed to shake the dream violently
out of me. At least it gave me another point of
view somehow. The figures still remained, still
ascended into heaven from the heart of the night,
but my reason at last began to assert inself. It must
be a subjective experience, I argued—none the less
real for that, but still subjective. The moonlight
and the branches combined to work out these
pictures upon the mirror of my imagination, and for
some reason I projected them outwards and made
them appear objective. I knew this must be the
case, of course. I was the subject of a vivid and
interesting hallucination. I took courage, and began
to move forward across the open patches of sand.
By Jove, though, was it all hallucination ? Was it
merely subjective? Did not my reason argue in
the old futile way from the little standard of the
known ?

I only know that great column of figures ascended
darkly into the sky for what seemed a very long

THE WILLOWS 156

period of time, and with a very complete measure
of reality as most men are accustomed to gauge
reality. Then suddenly they were gone!

And, once they were gone and the immediate
wonder of their great presence had passed, fear
came down upon mewithacoldrush. The esoteric
meaning of this lonely and haunted region suddenly
flamed up within me, and I| began to tremble dread-
fully. I took a quick look round—a look of horror
that came near to panic—calculating vainly ways of
escape ; and then, realising how helpless I was to
achieve anything really effective, I crept back silently
into the tent and lay down again upon my sandy
mattress, first lowering the door-curtain to shut out
the sight of the willows in the moonlight, and then
burying my head as deeply as possibly beneath the
blankets to deaden the sound of the terrifying
wind.

Ill

As though further to convince me that I had not
been dreaming, I remember that it was a long time
before I fell again into a troubled and restless sleep ;
and even then only the upper crust of me slept,
and underneath there was something that never
quite lost consciousness, but lay alert and on the
watch. é

But this second time I jumped up with a genuine
start of terror. It was neither the wind nor the
river that woke me, but the slow approach of some-
thing that caused the sleeping portion of me to grow
smaller and smaller till at last it vanished altogether,
and I found myself sitting bolt upright—listening.

Outside there was a sound of multitudinous little
patterings. They had been coming, I was aware,
for a long time, and in my sleep they had first
become audible. I sat there nervously wide awake
as though I had not slept at all. It seemed to me
that my breathing came with difficulty, and that
there was a great weight upon the surface of my
body. In spite of the hot night, I felt clammy with
cold and shivered. Something surely was pressing
steadily against the sides of the tent and weighing
down upon it from above. Was it the body of the

THE WILLOWS | 157

wind? Was this the pattering rain, the dripping of
the leaves? The spray blown from the river by the
wind and gathering in big drops? I thought quickly
of a dozen things.

Then suddenly the explanation leaped into my
mind : a bough from the poplar, the only large tree
on the island, had fallen with the wind. Still half
caught by the other branches, it would fall with the
next gust and crush us, and meanwhile its leaves
brushed and tapped upon the tight canvas surface
of the tent. I raised the loose flap and rushed out,
calling to the Swede to follow.

But when I got out and stood upright I saw that
the tent was free. There was no hanging bough ;
there was no rain or spray; nothing approached.

A cold, grey light filtered down through the
bushes and lay on the faintly gleaming sand. Stars
still crowded the sky directly overhead, and the wind
howled magnificently, but the fire no longer gave
out any glow, and I saw the east reddening in
streaks through the trees. Several hours must have
passed since I stood there before watching the
ascending figures, and the memory of it now came
back to me horribly, like an evil dream. Oh, how
tired it made me feel, that ceaseless raging wind!
Yet, though the deep lassitude of a sleepless night
was on me, my nerves were tingling with the activity
of an equally tireless apprehension, and all idea of
repose was out of the question. The river I saw
had risen further. Its thunder filled the air, and a
fine spray made itself felt through my thin sleeping

shirt.

158 THE WILLOWS

Yet nowhere did I discover the slightest evidences
of anything to cause alarm, This deep, prolonged
disturbance in my heart remained wholly unac-
counted for.

My companion had not stirred when I called him,
and there was no need to waken him now. I looked
about me carefully, noting everything : the turned-
over canoe; the yellow paddles—two of them, I’m
certain ; the provision sack and the extra lantern
hanging together from the tree; and, crowding
everywhere about me, enveloping all, the willows,
those endless, shaking willows. A bird uttered its
morning cry, and a string of duck passed with
whirring flight overhead in the twilight. The sand
whirled, dry and stinging, about my bare feet in the
wind.

I walked round the tent and then went out a little.
way into the bush, so that I could see across the
river to the farther landscape, and the same pro-
found yet indefinable emotion of distress seized
upon me again as I saw the interminable sea of
bushes stretching to the horizon, looking ghostly
and unreal in the wan light of dawn. I walked
softly here and there, still puzzling over that odd
sound of infinite pattering, and of that pressure
upon the tent that had wakened me. It must have
been the wind, I reflected—the wind beating upon
the loose, hot sand, driving the dry particles smartly
against the taut canvas—the wind dropping heavily
upon our fragile roof.

Yet all the time my nervousness and malaise
increased appreciably.

THE WILLOWS 159

I crossed over to the farther shore and noted how
the coast-line had altered in the night, and what
masses of sand the river had torn away. I dipped
my hands and feet into the cool current, and bathed
my forehead. Already there was a glow of sunrise
in the sky and the exquisite freshness of coming
day. On my way back I passed purposely beneath
the very bushes where I had seen the column of
figures rising into the air, and midway among the
clumps I suddenly found myself overtaken by a
sense of vast terror. From the shadows a large
figure went swiftly by. Some one passed me, as
sure as ever man did....

It was a great staggering blow from the wind that
helped me forward again, and once out in the more
open space, the sense of terror diminished strangely.
The winds were about and walking, I remember
saying to myself; for the winds often move like
great presences under the trees, And altogether
the fear that hovered about me was such an un-
known and immense kind of fear, so unlike anything
I had ever felt before, that it woke a sense of awe
and wonder in me that did much to counteract its
worst effects; and when I reached a high point in
the middle of the island from which I could see the
wide stretch of river, crimson in the sunrise, the
whole magical beauty of it all was so overpowering
that a sort of wild yearning woke in me and almost
brought a cry up into the throat.

But this cry found no expression, for as my eyes
wandered from the plain beyond to the island round
me and noted our little tent half hidden among the

160 ~ THE WILLOWS

willows, a dreadful discovery leaped out at me,
compared to which my terror of the walking winds
seemed as nothing at all.

For a change, I thought, had somehow come about
in the arrangement of the landscape. It was not
that my point of vantage gave me a different view,
but that an alteration had apparently been effected
in the relation of the tent to the willows, and of the
willows to the tent. Surely the bushes now crowded
much closer—unnecessarily, unpleasantly close.
They had moved nearer.

Creeping with silent feet over the shifting sands,
drawing imperceptibly nearer by soft, unhurried
movements, the willows had come closer during the
night. But had the wind moved them, or had they
moved of themselves? I recalled the sound of
infinite small patterings and the pressure upon the
tent and upon my own heart that caused me to wake
in terror. I swayed for a moment in the wind like
a tree, finding it hard to keep my upright position
on the sandy hillock. There was a suggestion here
of personal agency, of deliberate intention, of
aggressive hostility, and it terrified me into a sort
of rigidity.

Then the reaction followed quickly. The idea
was so bizarre, so absurd, that I felt inclined to
laugh. But the laughter came no more readily than
the cry, for the knowledge that my mind was so
respective to such dangerous imaginings brought the
additional terror that it was through our minds and
not through our physical bodies that the attack
would come, and was coming.

THE WILLOWS 161

The wind buffeted me about, and, very quickly it
seemed, the sun came up over the horizon, for it
was after four o’clock, and I must have stood on
that little pinnacle of sand longer than I knew,
afraid to come down at close quarters with the
willows. I returned quietly, creepily, to the tent,
first taking another exhaustive look round and
—yes, I confess it—making a few measurements.
I paced out on the warm sand the distances between
the willows and the tent, making a note of the
shortest distance particularly.

{ crawled stealthily into my blankets. My com-
panion, to all appearances, still slept soundly, and I
was glad that this was so. Provided my experiences
were not corroborated, Icouldfind strength somehow
to deny them, perhaps. With the daylight I could
persuade myself that it was all a subjective hallu-
cination, a fantasy of the night, a projection of the
excited imagination.

Nothing further came to disturb me, and I fell
asleep almost at once, utterly exhausted, yet still in
dread of hearing again that weird sound of multitu-
dinous pattering, or of feeling the pressure upon my
heart that had made it difficult to breathe,

IV

THE sun was high in the heavens when my com-
panion woke me from a heavy sleep and announced
that the porridge was cooked and there was just ©
time to bathe. The grateful smell of frizzling bacon
entered the tent door.

“ River still rising,” he said, “and several islands
out in mid-stream have disappeared altogether. Our
own island’s much smaller.”

“Any wood left ?” I asked sleepily.

“The wood and the island will finish to-morrow
in a dead heat,” he laughed, “ but there’s enough to
last us till then.”

I plunged in from the point of the island, which
had indeed altered a lot in size and shape during
the night, and was swept down in a moment to the
landing place opposite the tent. The water was icy,
and the banks flew by like the country from an
express train. Bathing under such conditions was
an exhilarating operation, and the terror of the night
seemed cleansed out of me by a process of evapora-
tion in the brain. The sun was blazing hot; nota
cloud showed itself anywhere ; the wind, however,
had not abated one little jot.

Quite suddenly then the implied meaning of the

THE WILLOWS 163

Swede’s words flashed across me, showing that he
no longer wished to leave post-haste, and had
changed his mind. “ Enough to last till to-morrow”
—he assumed we should stay on the island another
night. It struck me as odd. The night before he
was so positive the other way. How had the change
come about ?

Great crumblings of the banks occurred at break-
fast, with heavy splashings and clouds of spray which
the wind brought into our frying-pan, and my
fellow-traveller talked incessantly about the difficulty
the Vienna-Pesth steamers must have to find the
channel in flood. But the state of his mind in-
terested and impressed me far more than the state
of the river or the difficulties of the steamers. He
had changed somehow since the evening before.
His manner was different—a trifle excited, a trifle
shy, with a sort of suspicion about his voice and
gestures. I hardly know how to describe it now in
cold blood, but at the time I remember being quite
certain of one thing, viz., that he had become
frightened !

He ate very little breakfast, and for once omitted
to smoke his pipe. He had the map spread open
beside him, and kept studying its markings,

“We'd better get off sharp in an hour,” I said
presently, feeling for an opening that must bring him
indirectly to a partial confession at any rate. And
his answer puzzled me uncomfortably: ‘“ Rather!
If they'll let us.”

“Who'll let us? The elements?” I asked
quickly, with affected indifference.

164 THE WILLOWS

“The powers of this awful place, whoever they
are,” he replied, keeping his eyes on the map. “The
gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in the
world.”

“The elements are always the true immortals,” I
replied, laughing as naturally as I could manage,
yet knowing quite well that my face reflected my
true feelings when he looked up gravely at me and
spoke across the smoke :

“We shall be fortunate if we get away without
further disaster.”

This was exactly what I had dreaded, and I screwed
myself up to the point of the direct question. It
was like agreeing to allow the dentist to extract the
tooth ; it had to come anyhow in the long run, and
the rest was all pretence.

‘Further disaster ! Why, what’s happened ?”

“For one thing—the steering paddle’s gone,” he
said quietly.

“ The steering paddle gone!” I repeated, greatly
excited, for this was our rudder, and the Danube in
flood without a rudder was suicide. “ But what

“And there’s a tear in the bottom of the canoe,”
he added, with a genuine little tremor in his voice,

I continued staring at him, able only to repeat
the words in his face somewhat foolishly. There,
in the heat of the sun, and on this burning sand, I
was aware of a freezing atmosphere descending
round us. I got up to follow him, for he merely
nodded his head gravely and led the way towards
the tent a few yards on the other side of the fire-
place. The canoe still lay there as I had last seen

THE WILLOWS 165

her in the night, ribs uppermost, the paddles, or
rather, the paddle, on the sand beside her.

“ There’s only one,” he said, stooping to pick it
up. ‘And here’s the rent in the base-board.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I
had clearly noticed two paddles a few hours before,
but a second impulse made me think better of it, and
I said nothing. I approached to see.

There was a long, finely-made tear in the bottom
of the canoe where a little slither of wood had been
neatly taken clean out; it looked as if the tooth of
a sharp rock or snag had eaten down her length,
and investigation showed that the hole went
through. Had we launched out in her without
observing it we must inevitably have foundered. At
first the water would have made the wood swell so
as to close the hole, but once out in mid-stream the
water must have poured in, and the canoe, never
more than two inches above the surface, would
have filled and sunk very rapidly.

“There, you see, an attempt to prepare a victim
for the sacrifice,” I heard him saying, more to him-
self than to me, “two victims rather,” he added as
he bent over and ran his fingers along the slit.

I began to whistle—a thing I always do uncon-
sciously when utterly nonplussed—and purposely
paid no attention to his words. I was determined
to consider them foolish.

“It wasn’t there last night,” he said presently,
straightening up from his examination and looking
anywhere but at me.

“We must have scratched her in landing, of

166 THE WILLOWS

course,” I stopped whistling to say, “The stones
are very sharp :

I stopped abruptly, for at that moment he turned
round and met my eye squarely. I knew just as
well as he did how impossible my explanation
was. There were no stones, to begin with.

“And then there’s this to explain too,” he added
quietly, handling me the paddle and pointing to the
blade.

A new and curious emotion spread freezingly
over me as I took and examined it. The blade was
scraped down all over, beautifully scraped, as though
some one had sand-papered it with care, making it
so thin that the first vigorous stroke must have
snapped it off at the elbow.

“One of us walked in his sleep and did this thing,”
I said feebly, “ or—or it has been filed by the con-
stant stream of sand particles blown against it by the
wind, perhaps.”

“ Ah,” said the Swede, turning away, laughing a
little, “you can explain everything!”

“The same wind that caught the steering paddle
and flung it so near the bank that it fell in with the
next lump that crumbled,” I called out after him,
absolutely determined to find an explanation for
everything he showed me.

“T see,” he shouted back, turning his head to
look at me before disappearing among the willow
bushes.

Once alone with these perplexing evidences of
personal agency, I think my first thought took the
form of “One of us must have done this thing, and

THE WILLOWS 167

it certainly was not I.” But my second thought de-
cided how impossible it was to suppose, under all
the circumstances, that either of us had done it,
That my companion, the trusted friend of a dozen
similar expeditions, could have knowingly had a
hand in it, was a suggestion not to be entertained
fora moment. Equally absurd seemed the explana-
tion that this imperturbable and densely practical
nature had suddenly become insane and was busied
with insane purposes.

Yet the fact remained that what disturbed me
most, and kept my fear actively alive even in this
blaze of sunshine and wild beauty, was the clear
certainty that some curious alteration had come
about in his mind—that he was nervous, timid, sus-
picious, aware of goings on he did not speak about,
watching a series of secret and hitherto unmention-
able events—waiting, in a word, for a climax that he
expected, and, I thought, expected very soon. This
grew up in my mind intuitively—I hardly knew
how.

I made a hurried examination of the tent and its
surroundings, but the measurements of the night
remained the same. There were deep hollows
formed in the sand, I now noticed for the first time,
basin-shaped and of various depths and sizes, vary-
ing from that of a tea-cup to a large bowl. The
wind, no doubt, was responsible for these miniature
craters, just as it was for lifting the paddle and
tossing it towards the water. The rent in the canoe
was the only thing that seemed quite inexplicable ;
and, after all, it was conceivable that a sharp point

168 THE WILLOWS

had caught it when we landed. The examination I
made of the shore did not assist this theory, but all
the same I clung to it with that diminishing portion
of my intelligence which I called my “reason.”
An explanation of some kind was an absolute
necessity, just as some working explanation of the
universe is necessary— however absurd—to the
happiness of every individual who seeks to do
his duty in the world and face the problems of
life. The simile seemed to me at the time an exact
parallel.

I at once set the pitch melting, and presently the
Swede joined me at the work, though under the best
conditions in the world the canoe could not be safe
for travelling till the following day. I drew his
attention casually to the hollows in the sand.

“Yes,” he said, “I know. They’re all over the
island. But you can explain them, no doubt!”

“Wind, of course,” I answered without hesitation.
““ Have you never watched those little whirlwinds in
the street that twist and twirl everything into a
circle? This sand’s loose enough to yield, that’s
all.”

He made no reply, and we worked on in silence
for a bit. I watched him surreptitiously all the
time, and I had an idea he was watching me. He
seemed, too, to be always listening attentively to
something I could not hear, or perhaps for some-
thing that he expected to hear, for he kept turning
about and staring into the bushes, and up into the
sky, and out across the water where it was visible
through the openings among the willows. Some-

THE WILLOWS 169

times he even put his hand to his ear and held it
there for several minutes. He said nothing to me,
however, about it, and I asked no questions. And
meanwhile, as he mended that torn canoe with the
skill and address of a red Indian, I was glad to notice
his absorption in the work, for there was a vague
dread in my heart that he would speak of the changed
aspect of the willows. And, if he had noticed that,
my imagination could no longer be held a sufficient
explanation of it.

At length, after a long pause, he began to talk.

“ Queer thing,” he added ina hurried sort of voice,
as though he wanted to say something and get it
pver. ‘ Queer thing, I mean, about that otter last
night.”

I had expected something so totally different
that he caught me with surprise, and I looked up
sharply.

“Shows how lonely this place is. Otters are
awfully shy things

“T don’t mean that, of course,” he interrupted.
“T mean—do you think—did you think it really was
an otter ?”

““What else, in the name of Heaven, what else ?”

“You know, I saw it before you did, and at
first it seemed—so much bigger than an otter.”

“The sunset as you looked up-stream magnified
it, or something,” I replied.

He looked at me absently a moment, as though
his mind were busy with other thoughts.

“Tt had such extraordinary yellow eyes, he went
on half to himself.

170 THE WILLOWS

“That was the sun too,” I laughed, a trifle bois-
terously. “I suppose you'll wonder next if that
fellow in the boat x

I suddenly decided not to finish the sentence. He
was in the act again of listening, turning his head
to the wind, and something in the expression of his
face made me halt. The subject dropped, and we
went on with our caulking. Apparently he had not
noticed my unfinished sentence. Five minutes
later, however, he looked at me across the canoe,
the smoking pitch in his hand, his face exceedingly
grave.

“T did rather wonder, if you want to know,” he
said slowly, “ what that thing in the boat was. I
remember thinking at the time it was not a man.
The whole business seemed to rise quite suddenly
out of the water.”

I laughed again boisterously in his face, but this
time there was impatience, and a strain of anger
too, in my feeling.

“Look here now,” I cried, “this place is quite
queer enough without going out of our way to
imagine things! That boat was an ordinary boat,
and the man in it was an ordinary man, and they
were both going down stream as fast as they could
lick, And that otter was an otter, so don’t let’s play
the fool about it !”

He looked steadily at me with the same grave
expression. He was notin the least annoyed. I took
courage from his silence.

“ And, for Heaven's sake,” I went on, “ don’t keep
pretending you hear things, because it only gives

THE WILLOWS 171

me the jumps, and there’s nothing to hear but the
river and this cursed old thundering wind.”

“You fool !” he answered ina low, shocked voice,
“you utter fool. That’s just the way all victims
talk. Asif you didn’t understand just as well as I
do!” he sneered with scorn in his voice, and a sort
of resignation. ‘The best thing you can do is to
keep quiet and try to hold your mind as firm as
possible. This feeble attempt at self-deception only
makes the truth harder when you're forced to meet
ree

My little effort was over, and I found nothing
more to said, for I knew quite well his words were
true, and that J was the fool, not de. Up to a cer-
tain stage in the adventure he kept ahead of me
easily, and I think I felt annoyed to be out of it, to
be thus proved less psychic, less sensitive than him-
self to these extraordinary happenings, and _ half
ignorant all the time of what was going on under
my very nose. He knew from the very beginning,
apparently. But at the moment I wholly missed
the point of his words about the necessity of there
being a victim, and that we ourselves were destined
to satisfy the want. I dropped all pretence thence-
forward, but thenceforward likewise my fear in-
creased steadily to the climax.

“But you’re quite right about one thing,” he

added, before the subject passed, “and that is that
we're wiser not to talk about it, or even to think
about it, because what one thinks finds expression
in words, and what one says, happens.”

That afternoon, while the canoe dried and

172 THE WILLOWS

hardened, we spent trying to fish, testing the leak,
collecting wood, and watching the enormous flood
of rising water. Masses of driftwood swept near
our shores sometimes, and we fished for them
with long willow branches. The island grew
perceptibly smaller as the banks were torn away
with great gulps and splashes. The weather
kept brilliantly fine till about four o’clock, and
then for the first time for three days the wind
showed signs of abating. Clouds began to gather
in the south-west, spreading thence slowly over the
sky.

This lessening of the wind came as a great relief,
for the incessant roaring, banging, and thundering
had irritated our nerves. Yet the silence that came
about five o’clock with its sudden cessation was in a
manner quite as oppressive. The booming of the
river had everything its own way then: it filled the
air with deep murmurs, more musical than the
wind noises, but infinitely more monotonous. The
wind held many notes, rising, falling, always beating
out some sort of great elemental tune; whereas the
river’s song lay between three notes at most—dull
pedal notes, that held a lugubrious quality foreign
to the wind, and somehow seemed to me, in my
then nervous state, to sound wonderfully well the
music of doom.

It was extraordinary, too, how the withdrawal
suddenly of bright sunlight took everything out of
the landscape that made for cheerfulness ; and since
this particular landscape had already managed to
convey the suggestion of something sinister, the

THE WILLOWS 173

change of course was all the more unwelcome and
noticeable. For me, I know, the darkening outlook
became distinctly more alarming, and I found myself
more than once calculating how soon after sunset
the full moon would get up in the east, and whether
the gathering clouds would greatly interfere with
her lighting of the little island.

With this general hush of the wind—though it
still indulged in occasional brief gusts—the river
seemed to me to grow blacker, the willows to stand
more densely together. The latter, too, kept up a
sort of independent movement of their own, rustling
among themselves when no wind stirred, and shak-
ing oddly from the roots upwards. When common
objects in this way become charged with the sug-
gestion of horror, they stimulate the imagination
far more than things of unusual appearance; and
these bushes, crowding huddled about us, assumed
for me in the darkness a bizarre grotesquerie of
appearance that lent to them somehow the aspect of
purposeful and living creatures, Their very ordin-
ariness, I felt, masked what was malignant and
hostile to us. The forces of the region drew
nearer with the coming of night. They were
focussing upon our island, and more particularly
upon ourselves. For thus, somehow, in the terms
of the imagination, did my really indescribable
sensations in this extraordinary place present them-
selves.

I had slept a good deal in the early afternoon, and
had thus recovered somewhat from the exhaustion
of a disturbed night, but this only served apparently

174 THE WILLOWS

to render me more susceptible than before to the
obsessing spell of the haunting. I fought against
it, laughing at my feelings as absurd and childish,
with very obvious physiological explanations,
yet, in spite of every effort, they gained in
strength upon me so that I dreaded the night as
a child lost in a forest must dread the approach
of darkness,

The canoe we had carefully covered with a water-
proof sheet during the day, and the one remaining
paddle had been securely tied by the Swede to the
base of a tree, lest the wind should rob us of that
too. From five o’clock onwards I busied myself
with the stew-pot and preparations for dinner, it
being my turn turn to cook that night. We had
potatoes, onions, bits of bacon fat to add flavour,
and a general thick residue from former stews at
the bottom of the pot ; with black bread broken up
into it the result was most excellent, and it was fol-
lowed by a stew of plums with sugar and a brew of
strong tea with dried milk. A good pile of wood
lay close at hand, and the absence of wind made
my duties easy. My companion sat lazily watching
me, dividing his attentions between cleaning his
pipe and giving useless advice—an admitted privilege
of the off-duty man. He had been very quiet all
the afternoon, engaged in re-caulking the canoe,
strengthening the tent ropes, and fishing for
driftwood while I slept. No more talk about
undesirable things had passed between us, and
I think his only remarks had to do with the
gradual destruction of the island, which he de-

THE WILLOWS 178

clared was now fully a third smaller than when
we first landed.

The pot had just begun to bubble when I heard
his voice calling to me from the bank, where he had
wandered away without my noticing. I ran up.

“Come and listen,” he said, “and see what you
make of it.” He held his hand cupwise to his ear,
as so often before.

“Now do you hear anything ?” he asked, watching
me curiously.

We stood there, listening attentively together.
At first I heard only the deep note of the water and
the hissings rising from its turbulent surface. The
willows, for once, were motionless and silent. Then
a sound began to reach my ears faintly, a peculiar
sound—something like the humming of a distant
gong. It seemed to come across to us in the dark-
ness from the waste of swamps and willows opposite.
It was repeated at regular intervals, but it was cer-
tainly neither the sound of a bell nor the hooting of
adistantsteamer. I can liken it to nothing so much
as to the sound of an immense gong, suspended
far up in the sky, repeating incessantly its muffled
metallic note, soft and musical, as it was repeatedly
struck. My heart quickened as I listened.

“T’'ve heard it all day,” said my companion.
“While you slept this afternoon it came all round
the island. I hunted it down, but could never get
near enough to see—to localise it correctly. Some-
times it was overhead, and sometimes it seemed
under the water. Once or twice, too, I could have
sworn it was not outside at all, but within myself—

176 THE WILLOWS

you know—the way a sound in the fourth dimension
is supposed to come.”

I was too much puzzled to pay much attention to
his words. I listened carefully, striving to associate
it with any known familiar sound I could think of,
but without success. It changed in direction, too,
coming nearer, and then sinking utterly away into
remote distance. I cannot say that it was ominous
in quality, because to me it seemed distinctly musical,
yet I must admit it set going a distressing feeling
that made me wish I had never heard it,

“The wind blowing in those sand-funnels,” I said,
determined to find an explanation, “or the bushes
rubbing together after the storm perhaps.”

“It comes off the whole swamp,” my friend
answered. “It comes from everywhere at once.”
He ignored my explanations ‘It comes from the
willow bushes somehow 2

“But now the wind has dropped,” I objected.
“The willows can hardly make a noise by them-
selves, can they ?”

His answer frightened me, first because I had
dreaded it, and secondly, because I knew intuitively
it was true.

“Tt is because the wind has dropped we now hear
it. It was drowned before. Itis the cry, I believe,
of the ——”

I dashed back to my fire, warned by a sound of
bubbling that the stew was in danger, but deter-
mined at the same time to escape from further
conversation. I was resolute, if possible, to avoid
the exchanging of views, I dreaded, too, that he

THE WILLOWS 177

would begin again about the gods, or the elemental
forces, or something else disquieting, and I wanted
to keep myself well in hand for what might
happen later. There was another night to be
faced before we escaped from this distressing place,
and there was no knowing yet what it might bring
forth.

“Come and cut up bread for the pot,” I called
to him, vigorously stirring the appetising mixture.
That stew-pot held sanity for us both, and the
thought made me laugh.

He came over slowly and took the provision sack
from the tree, fumbling in its mysterious depths,
and then emptying the entire contents upon the
ground-sheet at his feet.

“Hurry up!” I cried; “it’s boiling.”

The Swede burst out into a roar of laughter that
startled me. It was forced laughter, not artificial
exactly, but mirthless.

“ There's nothing here !” he shouted, holding his
sides.

“ Bread, I mean.”

“It’s gone. There is no bread. They’ve taken
it!”

I dropped the long spoon and ran up. Every-
thing the sack had contained lay upon the ground-
sheet, but there was no loaf.

The whole dead weight of my growing fear fell
upon me and shook me. Then I burst out laughing
too. It was the only thing to do: and the sound
of my own laughter also made me understand his.

The strain of psychical pressure caused it—this
M

178 THE WILLOWS

explosion of unnatural laughter in both of us}; it
was an effort of repressed forces to seek relief ; it
was a temporary safety valve. And with both of
us it ceased quite suddenly.

“How criminally stupid of me!” I cried, still
determined to be consistent and find an explanation.
“T clean forgot to buy a loaf at Pressburg. That
chattering woman put everything out of my head,
and I must have left it lying on the counter or 7

“The oatmeal, too, is much less than it was this
morning,” the Swede interrupted.

Why in the world need he draw attention to it ? I
thought angrily.

‘There’s enough for to-morrow,” I said, stirring
vigorously, “and we can get lots more at Komorn
or Gran. In twenty-four hours we shall be miles
from here.”

“JT hope so—to God,” he muttered, putting the
things back into the sack, “unless we’re claimed
first as victims for the sacrifice,” he added witha
foolish laugh. He dragged the sack into the tent,
for safety’s sake, Isuppose, and I heard him mumbling
on to himself, but so indistinctly that it seemed quite
natural for me to ignore his words.

/ Our meal was beyond question a gloomy one, and
we ate it almost in silence, avoiding one another’s
eyes, and keeping the fire bright. Then we washed
up and prepared for the night, and, once smoking,
our minds unoccupied with any definite duties, the
apprehension I had felt all day long became more
and more acute. It was not then active fear, I think,
but the very vagueness of its origin distressed me far

THE WILLOWS 179

more than if I had been able to ticket and face it
squarely. The curious sound I have likened to the
note of a gong became now almost incessant, and
filled the stillness of the night with a faint, con+
tinuous ringing rather than a series of distinct notes.
At one time it was behind and at another time in
front of us. Sometimes I fancied it came from
the bushes on our left, and then again from the
clumps on our right. More often it hovered
directly overhead like the whirring of wings. It
was really everywhere at once, behind, in front, at
our sides and over our heads, completely surround-
ing us. The sound really defies description. But
nothing within my knowledge is like that ceaseless
muffled humming rising off the deserted world of
swamps and willows.

We sat smoking in comparative silence, the strain
growing every minute greater. The worst feature
of the situation seemed to me that we did not know
what to expect, and could therefore make no sort of
preparation by way ofdefence. Wecould anticipate
nothing. My explanations made in the sunshine,
moreover, now came to haunt me with their foolish
and wholly unsatisfactory nature, and it was more
and more clear to us that some kind of plain talk
with my companion was inevitable, whether I liked
it or not. After all, we had to spend the night
together, and to sleep in the same tent side by side.
I saw that I could not get along much longer with-
out the support of his mind, and for that, of course,
plain talk was imperative. As long as possible,
however, I postponed this little climax, and tried to

180 THE WILLOWS

ignore or laugh at the occasional sentences he flung
into the emptiness.

Some of these sentences, moreover, were con-
foundedly disquieting to me, coming as they did to
corroborate much that I felt myself : corroboration,
too—which made it so much more convincing—
from a totally different point of view. He com-
posed such curious sentences, and hurled them
at me in such an inconsequential sort of way, as
though his main line of thought was secret to him-
self, and these fragments were the bits he found it
impossible to digest. He got rid of them by uttering
them. Speech relieved him. It was like being sick.

“There are things about us, I’m sure, that
make for disorder, disintegration, destruction, our
destruction,” he said once, while the fire blazed
between us. ‘‘ We've strayed out of a safe line
somewhere.”

And another time, when the gong sounds had
come nearer, ringing much louder than before, and
directly over our heads, he said, as though talking to
himself :

“J don’t think a phonograph would show any
record of that. The sound doesn’t come to me by
the earsatall. The vibrations reach me in another
manner altogether, and seem to be within me, which
is precisely how a fourth dimensional sound might
be supposed to make itself heard.”

I purposely made no reply to this, but I sat up a
little closer to the fire and peered about me into the
darkness. Theclouds were massed all over the sky
and no trace of moonlight came through. Very

THE WILLOWS <1

still, too, everything was, so that the river and the
frogs had things all their own way.

“It has that about it,” he went on, “ which is
utterly out of common experience. It is unknown.
Only one thing describes it really: it 1s a non-
human sound ; I mean a sound outside humanity.”

Having rid himself of this indigestible morsel, he
lay quiet for a time; but he had so admirably
expressed my own feeling that it was a relief to have
the thought out, and to have confined it by the
limitation of words from dangerous wandering to
and fro in the mind.

The solitude of that Danube camping-place, can
I ever forget it? The feeling of being utterly alone
onan empty planet! My thoughts ran incessantly
upon cities and the haunts of men. I would have
given my soul, as the saying is, for the “feel” of
those Bavarian villages we had passed through by
the score; for the normal, human commonplaces:
peasants drinking beer, tables beneath the trees,
hot sunshine, and a ruined castle on the rocks be-
hind the red-roofed church. Even the tourists
would have been welcome.

Yet what I felt of dread was no ordinary ghostly
fear. It was infinitely greater, stranger, and seemed
to arise from some dim ancestral sense of terror
more profoundly disturbing than anything I had
known or dreamed of. We had “strayed,” as the
Swede put it, into some region or some set of con-
ditions where the risks were great, yet unintelligible
to us; where the frontiers of some unknown world
lay close about us. It was a spot held by the

182 THE WILLOWS

dwellers in some outer space, a sort of peep-hole
whence they could spy upon the earth, themselves
‘unseen, a point where’ the veil between had worn a
little thin. As the final result of too long a sojourn
here, we should be carried over the border and de-
prived of what we called “our lives,” yet by mental,
not physical, processes. In that sense, as he said,
we should be the victims of our adventure—a
sacrifice.

It took us in different fashion, each according to
the measure of his sensitiveness and powers of re-
sistance. I translated it vaguely into a personifica-
tion of the mightily disturbed elements, investing
them with the horror of a deliberate and malefic
purpose, resentful of our audacious intrusion into
their breeding-place; whereas my friend threw it
into the unoriginal form at first of a trespass on
some ancient shrine, some place where the old gods
still held sway, where the emotional forces of former
worshippers still clung, and the ancestral portion of
him yielded to the old pagan spell.

At any rate, here was a place unpolluted by men,
kept clean by the winds from coarsening human
influences, a place where spiritual agencies were
within reach and aggressive. Never, before or since,
have I been so attacked by indescribable suggestions
of a “ beyond region,” of another scheme of life,
another evolution not parallel to the human. And
in the end our minds would succumb under the
weight of the awful spell, and we should be drawn
across the frontier into their world.

Small things testified to this amazing influence of

-

THE WILLOWS 183

the place, and now in the silence round the fire they
allowed themselves to be noted by the mind. The
very atmosphere had proved itself a magnifying
medium to distort every indication ! the otter rolling
in the current, the hurrying boatman making signs,
the shifting willows, one and all had been robbed
of its natural character, and revealed in something
of its other aspect—as it existed across the border
in that other region. And this changed aspect I
felt was new not merely to me, but to therace. The
whole experience whose verge we touched was
unknown to humanity at all. It was a new order
of experience, and in the true sense of the word
unearthly,

} “It’s the deliberate, calculating purpose that
reduces one’s courage to zero,” the Swede said
suddenly, as if he had been actually following my
thoughts. ‘Otherwise imagination might count
for much: But the paddle, the canoe, the lessening
food aE

“Haven't I explained all that once?” I inter-
rupted viciously.

“You have,’ he answered dryly; “you have
indeed.”

He made other remarks too, as usual, about what
be called the “plain determination to provide a
victim” ; but, having now arranged my thoughts
better, I recognised that this was simply the cry of
his frightened soul against the knowledge that he
was being attacked in a vital part, and that he would
be somehow taken or destroyed. The situation
called for a courage and calmness of reasoning that

184 THE WILLOWS

neither of us could compass, and I have never before
been so clearly conscious of two persons in me—
the one that explained everything, and the other
that laughed at such foolish explanations, yet was
horribly afraid.

Meanwhile, in the pitchy night the fire died down
and the wood pile grew small. Neither of us moved
to replenish the stock, and the darkness conse-
quently came up very close to our faces. A few feet
beyond the circle of firelight it was inky black.
Occasionally a stray puff of wind set the willows
shivering about us, but apart from this not very
welcome sound a deep and depressing silence
reigned, broken only by the gurgling of the river
and the humming in the air overhead.

We both missed, I think, the shouting company
of the winds.

At length, ata moment when a stray puff pro-
longed itself as though the wind were about to rise
again, I reached the point for me of saturation, the
point where it was absolutely necessary to find relief
in plain speech, or else to betray myself by some
hysterical extravagance that must have been far
worse in its effect upon both of us. I kicked the
fire into a blaze, and turned to my companion
abruptly. He looked up with a start.

“TI can’t disguise it any longer,” I said ; “I don’t
like this place, and the darkness, and the noises,
and the awful feelings I get. There’s something
here that beats me utterly. I’m in a blue funk,
and that’s the plain truth. If the other shore was
—different, I swear I’d be inclined to swim for it!”

THE WILLOWS 185

The Swede’s face turned very white beneath the
deep tan of sun and wind. He stared straight at
me and answered quietly, but his voice betrayed
his huge excitement by its unnatural calmness.
For the moment, at any rate, he was the strong
man of the two. He was more phlegmatic, for
one thing.

“It’s nota physical condition we can escape from
by running away,” he replied, in the tone of a
doctor diagnosing some grave disease; ‘“‘we must
sit tight and wait. There are forces close here that
could kill a herd of elephants in a second as easily
as you orl could squash a fly. Our only chance
is to keep perfectly still. Our insignificance per-
haps may save us.”

I put a dozen questions into my expression of
face, but found no words. It was precisely like
listening to an accurate description of a disease
whose symptoms had puzzled me.

“I mean that so far, although aware of our dis-
turbing presence, they have not found us—not
‘located’ us, as the Americans say,” he went on.
“They're blundering about like men hunting for a
leak of gas. The paddle and canoe and provisions
prove that. I think they feel us, but cannot actually
see us. We must keep our minds quiet—it’s our
minds they feel. We must control our thoughts,
or it’s all up with us.”

“Death you mean?” I stammered, icy with the
horror of his suggestion.

‘““Worse—by far,” he said. “ Death, according
to ene’s belief, means either annihilation or release

186. THE WILLOWS

from the limitations of the senses, but it involves no
change of character. You don’t suddenly alter just
because the body’s gone. But this meansa radical
alteration, a complete change, a horrible loss of
oneself by substitution—far worse than death, and
not even annihilation. We happen to have camped
in aspot where their region touches ours, where
the veil between has worn thin ”—horrors!. he was
using my very own phrase, my actual words—“ so
that they are aware of our being in their neigh-
bourhood.”

“But who are aware ?”’ I asked.

I forgot the shaking of the willows in the wind-
less calm, the humming overhead, everything except
that I was waiting for an answer that,I dreaded more
than I can possibly explain.

He lowered his voice at once to reply, leaning
forward a little over the fire, an indefinable change
in his face that made me avoid his eyes and look
down upon the ground.

“ All my life,” he said, “I have been strangely,
vividly conscious of another region—not far re-
moved from our own world in one sense, yet wholly
different in kind—where great things go on un-
ceasingly, where immense and terrible personalities
hurry by, intent on vast purposes compared to which
earthly affairs, the rise and fall of nations, the
destinies of empires, the fate of armies and con-
tinents, are all as dust in the balance; vast pur-
poses, I mean, that deal directly with the soul,
and not indirectly with mere expressions of the
soul i!

- THE WILLOWS 187

!

“T suggest just now——” I began, seeking to
stop him, feeling as though I was face to face with

amadman. But he instantly overbore me with his
torrent that had to come.

“You think,” he said, “it is the spirits of the
elements, and I thought perhaps it was the old
gods. But I tell you now it is—mneither. These
would be comprehensible entities, for they have
relations with men, depending upon them for
worship or sacrifice, whereas these beings who
are now about us have absolutely nothing to
do with mankind, and it is mere chance that
their space happens just at this spot to touch our
own.” |
The mere conception, which his words somehow
made so convincing, as I listened to them there in
the dark stillness of that lonely island, set me
shaking a little all over. 1 found it impossible to
control my movements.

_ “And what do you propose ?” I began again.

““A sacrifice, a victim, might save us by distracting
them until we could get away,’ he went on, “ just
as the wolves stop to devour the dogs and give the
sleigh another start. But—I see no chance of any
other victim now.”

I stared blankly at him. The gleam in his eyes
was dreadful. Presently he continued.

“It’s the willows, of course. The willows mask
the others, but the others are feeling about for us.
If we let our minds betray our fear, we’re lost, lost
utterly.” He looked at me with an expression so
calm, so determined, so sincere, that I no longer

—

188 THE WILLOWS

had any doubts as to his sanity. He was as sane as
any man ever was. “If we can hold out through
the night,” he added,.“ we may get off in the day-
light unnoticed, or rather, undiscovered.”

“ But you really think a sacrifice would-——”

That gong-like humming came down very close
over our heads as I spoke, but it was my friend’s
scared face that really stopped my mouth.

“Hush!” he whispered, holding up his hand.
“Do not mention them more than you can help.
Do not refer to them by name. To name is to
reveal: it is the inevitable clue, and our only hope
lies in ignoring them, in order that they may ignore
us.”

“Even in thought?” He was extraordinarily
agitated.

“Especially in thought. Our thoughts make
spirals in their world. We must keep them out
of our minds at all costs if possible.”

I raked the fire together to prevent the darkness
having everything its own way. I never longed for
the sun as I longed for it then in the awful black-
ness of that summer night.

“Were you awake all last night ?” he went on
suddenly.

“TI slept badly a little after dawn,” I replied
evasively, trying to follow his instructions, which I
knew instinctively were true, ‘‘but the wind, of
course :

“T know. But the wind won’t account for all
the noises.”

“Then you heard it too ?”

THE WILLOWS 189

“The multiplying countless little footsteps I
heard,” he said, adding, after a moment’s hesitation,
“and that other sound Be

“You mean above the tent, and the pressing
down upon us of something tremendous, gigantic?”

He nodded significantly.

“Tt was like the beginning of a sort of inner
suffocation ?” I said.

_ “Partly, yes. It seemed to me that the weight of
the atmosphere had been altered—had increased
enormously, so that we should be crushed.”

“And that,” I went on, determined to have it all
out, pointing upwards where the gong-like note
hummed ceaselessly, rising and falling like wind.
“What do vou make of that?”

“It’s their sound,” he whispered gravely. ~“ It’s
the sound of their world, the humming in their
region. The division here is so thin that it leaks
through somehow. But, if you listen carefully,
you'll find it’s not above so much as around us.
It’s in the willows. It’s the willows themselves
humming, because here the willows have been made
symbols of the forces that are against us.”

I could not follow exactly what he meant by this,
yet the thought and idea in my mind were beyond
question the thought and idea in his. I realised
what he realised, only with less power of analysis
than his. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell
him at last about my hallucination of the ascending
figures and the moving bushes, when he suddenly
thrust his face again close into mine across the
firelight and began to speak in a very earnest

190 THE WILLOWS

whisper: He amazed me by his calmness and
pluck, his apparent control of the situation. This
man I had for years deemed. unimaginative, stolid!

‘Now listen,” hesaid. ‘The only thing for us to
do is to go on as though nothing had happened,
follow our usual habits, go to bed, and so forth ;
pretend we feel nothing and notice nothing. Itisa
question wholly of the mind, and the less we think
about them the better our chance of escape. Above
all, don’t think, for what you think happens !”

“ All right,” I managed to reply, simply breathless
with his words and the strangeness of it all; “all
right, I'll try, but tell me one thing more first. Tell
me what you make of those hollows in the ground
all about us, those sand-funnels? ”

“No!” he cried, forgetting to whisper in his
excitement. ‘I dare not, simply dare not, put the
thought into words. If you have not guessed I
am glad. Don't try to. They have put it into my
mind; try your hardest to prevent their putting. it
into yours.”

He sank his voice again to a whisper before he
finished, and I did not press him to explain. There
was already just about as much horror in meas I
could hold. The conversation came to an end, and
we smoked our pipes busily in silence.

Then something happened, something unim-
portant apparently, as the way is when the nerves
are in a very great state of tension, and this small
thing for a brief space gave me an entirely different
point of view. I chanced to look down at my sand-
shoe—the sort we used for the canoe—and some-

THE WILLOWS IQ!

thing to do with the hole at the toe suddenly recalled
to me the London shop where I had bought them,
the difficulty the man had in fitting me, and other
details of the uninteresting but practical operation.
At once, in its train, followed a wholesome view of
the modern sceptical world I was accustomed to
move inat home. I thought of roast beef and ale,
motor-cars, policemen, brass bands, and a dozen
other things that proclaimed the soul of ordinariness
or utility. The effect was immediate and astonishing
even to myself. Psychologically, I suppose, it was
simply a sudden and violent reaction after the strain
of living in an atmosphere of things that to the
normal consciousness must seem impossible and
incredible. But, whatever the cause, it momentarily
lifted the spell from my heart, and left me for the
short space of a minute feeling free and utterly
unafraid. I looked up at my friend opposite.

“You damned old pagan!” I cried, laughing
aloud in his face. ‘ You imaginative idiot! You
superstitious idolator! You——”

I stopped in the middle, seized anew by the old
horror. I tried to smother the sound of my voiceas
something sacrilegious. The Swede, of course, heard
it too—that strange cry overhead in the darkness—
and that sudden drop in the air as though something
had come nearer.

He had turned ashen white under the tan. He
stood bolt upright in front of the fire, stiff as a rod,
staring at me.

“ After that,” he said in a sort of helpless, frantic
way, “we must go! We can’t stay now; we must

192 THE WILLOWS

strike camp this very instant and go on—down the
river.”

He was talking, I.saw, quite wildly, his words
dictated by abject terror—the terror he had resisted
so long, but which had caught him at last.

“Tn the dark ?” I exclaimed, shaking with fear
after my hysterical outburst, but still realising our
position better than he did. “Sheer madness! The
river’s in flood, and we’ve only got a single paddle.
Besides, we only go deeper into their country!
There’s nothing ahead for fifty miles but willows,
willows, willows !”

He sat down again ina state of semi-collapse.
The positions, by one of those kaleidoscopic changes
nature loves, were suddenly reversed, and the con-
trol of our forces passed over into my hands. His
mind at last had reached the point where it was
beginning to weaken.

“What on earth possessed you to do such a
thing ?” he whispered, with the awe of genuine
terror in his voice and face.

I crossed round to his side of the fire. I took
both his hands in mine, kneeling down beside him
and looking straight into his frightened eyes.

“ We'll make one more blaze,” I said firmly, ‘and
then turn in for the night. At sunrise we'll be off
full speed for Komorn, Now, pull yourself together
a bit, and remember your own advice about not
thinking fear !”

He said no more, and I saw that he would agree
and obey. In some measure, too, it was a sort of
relief to get up and make an excursion into the

THE WILLOWS 193

darkness for more wood. We kept close together,
almost touching, groping among the bushes and
along the bank. The humming overhead never
ceased, but seemed to me to grow louder as we
increased our distance from the fire. It was shivery
work!

We were grubbing away in the middle of a
thickish clump of willows where some driftwood from
aformer flood had caught high among the branches,
when my body was seized ina grip that made me
half drop upon the sand. It was the Swede. He
had fallen against me, and was clutching me for
support. I heard his breath coming and going in
short gasps.

“Look! By my soul!” he whispered, and for
the first time in my experience I knew what it was
to hear tears of terror in a human voice. He was
pointing to the fire, some fifty feet away. I followed
the direction of his finger, and I swear my heart
missed a beat.

There, in front of the dim glow, something was
moving.

I saw it through a veil that hung before my eyes
like the gauze drop-curtain used at the back of a
theatre—hazily a little. It was neither a human
figure nor an animal. To me it gave the strange
impression of being as large as several animals
grouped together, like horses, two or three, moving
slowly. The Swede, too, got asimilar result, though
expressing it differently,for he thought it was shaped
and sized like a clump of willow bushes, rounded
at the top, and moving all over upon its surface—

N

194 THE WILLOWS

“coiling upon itself like smoke,” he said afters
wards.

“JT watched it settle downwards through the
bushes,” he sobbed at me. “ Look, by God! It’s
coming this way! Oh, oh!”—he gave a kind of
whistling cry. ‘“ They've found us.”

I gave one terrified glance, which just enabled
me to see that the shadowy form was swinging
towards us through the bushes, and then I collapsed
backwards with a crash into the branches. These
failed, of course, tosupport my weight, so that with
the Swede on the top of me we fell in a struggling
heap upon the sand. I really hardly knew what
was happening. I was conscious only of a sort of
enveloping sensation of icy fear that plucked the
nerves out of their fieshly covering, twisted them
this way and that, and replaced them quivering.
My eyes were tightly shut ; something in my throat
choked me; a feeling that my consciousness was
expanding, extending out into space, swiftly gave
way to another feeling that I was losing it altogether,
and about to die.

An acute spasm of pain passed through me, and
I was aware that the Swede had hold of me in such
a way that he hurt ne abominably. It was the way
he caught at me in falling.

But it was this pain, he declared afterwards, that
saved me: it caused me to forget them and think
of something else at the very instant when they were
about to find me. It concealed my mind fromthem
at the moment of discovery, yet just in time to evade
their terrible seizing of me. He himself, he says

THE WILLOWS * 195 |

actually swooned at the same moment, and that
was what saved him.

1 only know that at a later time, how long or
short is impossible to say, I found myself scrambling
up out of the slippery network of willow branches,
and saw my companion standing in front of me
holding out a hand to assist me. I stared at himin
a dazed way, rubbing the arm he had twisted for me.
Nothing came to me to say, somehow,

“I lost consciousness for a moment or two,” I
heard him say. ‘“ That’s what saved me, It made
me stop thinking about them.”

“ You nearly broke my arm in two,” I said, utter-
ing my only connected thought atthe moment. A
numbness came Over me.

“ That’s what saved you!’ he replied. “ Between
us, we've managed to set them off on a false tack
somewhere. The humming has ceased. It’s gone
—for the moment at any rate!”

A wave of hysterical laughter seized me again, and
this time spread to my friend too—great healing
gusts of shaking laughter that brought a tremendous
sense of relief in their train. We made our way
back to the fire and put the wood on so that it
blazed at once. Then we saw that the tent had fallen
over and lay in a tangled heap upon the ground,

We picked it up, and during the process tripped
more than once and caught our feet in sand,

“It’s those sand-funnels,” exclaimed the Swede,
when the tent was up again and the firelight lit up
the ground for several yards about us. “ And look
at the size of them!”

196 THE WILLOWS

All round the tent and about the fireplace where
we had seen the moving shadows there were deep
funnel-shaped hollows.in the sand, exactly similar to
the ones we had already found over the island, only
far bigger and deeper, beautifully formed, and wide
rough in some instances to admit the whole of my
foot and leg.

Neither of us said a word. We both knew that
sleep was the safest thing we could do, and to bed
we went accordingly without further delay, having
first thrown sand on the fire and taken the provision
sack and the paddle inside the tent with us. The
canoe, too, we propped in such a way at the end of
the tent that our feet touched it, and the least motion
would disturb and wake us.

In case of emergency, too, we again went to bed
in our clothes, ready for a sudden start,

Vv

IT was my firm intention to lie awake all night and
watch, but the exhaustion of nerves and body decreed
otherwise, and sleep after a while came over me with
a welcome blanket of oblivion. The fact that my
companion also slept quickened its approach. At
first he fidgeted and constantly sat up, asking me if
I “heard this” or “heard that.” He tossed about
on his cork mattress, and said the tent was moving
and the river had risen over the point of the island ;
but each time I went out to look I returned with the
report that all was well, and finally he grew calmer
and lay still. Then at length his breathing became
regular and I heard unmistakable sounds of snoring
—the first and only time in my life when snoring
has been a welcome and calming influence.

This, I remember, was the last thought in my
mind before dozing off.

A difficulty in breathing woke me, and I found
the blanket over my face. But something else
besides the blanket was pressing upon me, and my
first thought was that my companion had rolled off
his mattress on to my own in his sleep. I called
to him and sat up, and at the same moment it came
to me that the tent was surrounded. That sound of

198 - THE WILLOWS

multitudinous soft pattering was again audible
outside, filling the night with horror.

I called again to him, louder than before. He
did not answer, but I missed the sound of his snor-
ing, and also noticed that the flap of the tent door
was down. This was the unpardonable sin. 1
crawled out in the darkness to hook it back securely,
and it was then for the first time I realised positively
that the Swede was not there. He had gone.

I dashed out in a mad run, seized by a dreadful
agitation, and the moment I was out I plunged into
a sort of torrent of humming that surrounded me
completely and came out of every quarter of the
heavens at once. It was that same familiar hum-
ming—gone mad! A swarm of great invisible bees
might have been about me in the air, The sound
seemed to thicken the very atmosphere, and I felt
that my lungs worked with difficulty.

But my friend was in danger, and I could not
hesitate.

The dawn was just about to break, and a faint
whitish light spread upwards over the clouds from a
thin strip of clear horizon, No wind stirred. I
could just make out the bushes and river beyond,
and the pale sandy patches. In my excitement |
ran frantically to and fro about the island, calling
him by name, shouting at the top of my voice the
first words that cameinto my head, But the willows
smothered my voice, and the humming muffled it,
so that the sound only travelled a few feet round me,
I plunged among the bushes, tripping headlong,
tumbling over roots, and scraping my face as I

THE WILLOWS 199

tore this way and that among the preventing
branches.

Then, quite unexpectedly, I came out upon the
island’s point and saw a dark figure ‘outlined
between the water and the sky. It was the
Swede. And already he had one foot in the
river? A moment more and he would have taken
the plunge.

I threw myself upon him, flinging my arms about
his waist and dragging him shorewards with all my
strength. Of course he struggled furiously, making
a noise all the time just like that cursed humming,
and using the most outlandish phrases in his anger
about “ going inside to Them,” and “taking the way
of the water and the wind,” and God only knows
what more besides, that J tried in vain to recall
afterwards, but which turned me sick with horror
and amazement as I listened. But in the end I
managed to get him into the comparative safety
of the tent, and flung him breathless and cursing
upon the mattress, where I held him until the fit had
passed.

I think the suddenness with which it all went and
he grew calm, coinciding as it did with the equally
abrupt cessation of the humming and pattering
outside—I think this was almost the strangest part
of the whole business perhaps. For he just opened
his eyes and turned his tired face up to me so that
the dawn threw a pale light upon it through the
doorway, and said, for all the world just like a
frightened child :

“ My life, old man—it’s my life own you. But

SOOT THE WILLOWS

it’s all over now anyhow. They’ve found a victim
in our place!”

Then he dropped back upon his blankets and
went to sleep literally under my eyes. He simply
collapsed, and began to snore again as healthily as
though nothing had happened and he had never
tried to offer his own life as a sacrifice by drowning.
And when the sunlight woke him three hours later
—hours of ceaseless vigi! for me—it became so
clear to me that he remembered absolutely no-
thing of what he had attempted to do, that I
deemed it wise to hold my peace and ask no
dangerous questions.

He woke naturally and easily, as I have said,
when the sun was already high in a windless hot
sky, and he at once got up and set about the pre-
paration of the fire for breakfast. I followed him
anxiously at bathing, but he did not attempt to
plunge in, merely dipping his head and making
some remark about the extra coldness of the
water.

“ River’s falling at last,” he said, “and I’m glad
of it.”

‘““The humming has stopped too,” I said.

He looked up at me quietly with his normal ex-
pression. Evidently he remembered everything
except his own attempt at suicide.

“ Everything has stopped,” he said, ‘‘ because——”

He hesitated. But I knew some reference to
that remark he had made just before he fainted
was in his mind, and I was determined to know
it,

THE WILLOWS 201

“ Because ‘They’ve found another victim’?” I
said, forcing a little laugh.

‘‘Exactly,” he answered, “exactly! I feel as
positive of it as though—as though—I feel quite
safe again, I mean,” he finished.

He began to look curiously about him, The
sunlight lay in hot patches on the sand. There
was no wind. The willows were motionless. He
slowly rose to feet.

“Come,” he said ; “I think if we look, we shall
find it.”

He started off onarun, and I followed him. He
kept to the banks, poking with a stick among the
sandy bays and caves and little back-waters, myself
always close on his heels,

“Ah!” he exclaimed presently, “ah!”

The tone of his voice somehow brought back to
me a vivid sense of the horror of the last twenty-
four hours, and I hurried up to join him. He was
pointing with his stick at a large black object that
lay half in the water and half on the sand. It
appeared to be caught by some twisted willow
roots so that the river could not sweep it away.
A few hours before the spot must have been under
water.

“See,” he said quietly, ‘‘the victim that made our
escape possible !”

And when I peered across his shoulder I saw
that his stick rested on the body of a man. He
turned it over. It was the corpse of a peasant, and
the face was hidden in the sand. Clearly the man
had been drowned but a few hours before, and his

iY

202 THE WILLOWS

body must have been swept down upon our island
somewhere about the hour of the dawn—at the
very time the fit had passed.

“We must give it a decent burial, you know.” = -

“T suppose so,” I replied. I shuddered a little
in spite of myself, for there was something about
the appearance of that poor d-owned man that
turned me cold.

The Swede glanced up sharply at me, an unde-
cipherable expression on his face, and began
clambering down the bank. I followed him more
leisurely. The current, I noticed, had torn away
much of the clothing from the body, so that the
neck and part of the chest lay bare.

Half-way down the bank my companion suddenly
stopped and held up his hand in warning; but
either my foot slipped, or I had gained too much
momentum to bring myself quickly to a halt, for I
bumped into him and sent him forward with a sort
of leap to save himself. We tumbled together on
to the hard sand so that our feet splashed into the
water. And, before anything could be done, we
had collided a little heavily against the corpse.

The Swede uttered a sharp cry. And I sprang
back as if I had been shot.

At the moment we touched the body there rose
froin its surface the loud sound of humming—the
sound of several hummings—which passed with a
vast commotion as of winged things in the air about
us and disappeared upwards into the sky, grow-
ing fainter and fainter till they finally ceased in
jthe distance. It was exactly as though we had

;

THE WILLOWS 203

disturbed some living yet invisible creatures at
work,

My companion clutched me, and I think I
clutched him, but before either of us had time
properly to recover from the unexpected shock,
we saw that a movement of the current was turning
the corpse round so that it became released from
the grip of the willow roots. A moment later it
had turned completely over, the dead face upper-
most, staring at the sky. It lay on the edge of the
main stream. In another moment it would be
swept away.

The Swede started to save it, shouting again
something I did not catch about a “ proper burial”
—and then abruptly dropped upon his knees on the
sand and covered his eyes with his hands, I was
beside him in an instant.

I saw what he had seen.

For just as the body swung round to the current
the face and the exposed chest turned full towards
us, and showed plainly how the skin and flesh were
indented with small hollows, beautifully formed,
and exactly similar in shape and kind to the sand-
funnels that we had found all over the island.

“Their mark!” I heard my companion mutter
under his breath. “Their awful mark!”

And when I turned my eyes again from his
ghastly face to the river, the current had done
its work, and the body had been swept away into
midstream and was already beyond our reach and
almost out of sight, turning over and over on the
the waves like an otter,

mys Sige

HE INSANITY. OF JONES
(A STUDY IN REINCARNATION)

ADVENTURES come to the adventurous, and mys-
sterious things fall in the way of those who, with
wonder and imagination, are on the watch for
them; but the majority of people go past the doors
that are half ajar, thinking them closed, and fail to
notice the faint stirrings of the great curtain that
hangs ever in the form of appearances between
them and the world of causes behind.

For only to the few whose inner senses have been
quickened, perchance by some strange suffering in
the depths, or by a natural temperament bequeathed
from a remote past, comes the knowledge, not too
welcome, that this greater world lies ever at their
elbow, and that any moment a chance combination
of moods and forces may invite them to cross the
shifting frontier.

Some, however, are born with this awful certainty
in their hearts, and are called to no apprentice-
ship, and to this select company Jones undoubtedly
belonged.

All his life he had realised that his senses brought
to him merely a more or less interesting set of sham
appearances ; that space, as men measure it, was

206 THE INSANITY OF JONES

utterly misleading ; that time, as the clock ticked it
in a succession of minutes, was arbitrary nonsense ;
and, in fact, that all his sensory perceptions were
but a clumsy representation of real things behind
the curtain—things he was for ever trying to get at,
and that sometimes he actually did get at.

He had always been tremblingly aware that he
stood on the borderland of another region, a region
where time and space were merely forms of thought,
where ancient memories lay open to the sight, and
where the forces behind each human life stood
plainly revealed and he could see the hidden
springs at the very heart of the world. Moreover,
the fact that he was a clerk ina fire insurance office,
and did his work with strict attention, never allowed
him to forget for one moment that, just beyond the
dingy brick walls where the hundred men scribbled
with pointed pens beneath the electric lamps, there
existed this glorious region where the important
part of himself dwelt and moved and had its being.
For in this region he pictured himself playing the
part of a spectator to his ordinary workaday life,
watching, like a king, the stream of events, but un-
touched in his own soul by the dirt, the noise, and
the vulgar commotion of the outer world.

And this was no poetic dream merely. Jones was
not playing prettily with idealism to amuse himself.
It was a living, working belief. So convinced was
he that the external world was the result of a vast
deception practised upon him by the gross senses,
that when he stared at a great building like St.
Paul’s he felt it would not very much surprise him

THE INSANITY OF JONES 207

to see it suddenly quiver like a shape of jelly and then
melt utterly away, while in its place stood all at once
revealed the mass of colour, or the great intricate
vibrations, or the splendid sound—the spiritual idea
—which it represented in stone.

For something in this way it was that his mind
worked.

Yet, to all appearances, and in the satisfaction of
all business claims, Jones was normal and unenter-
prising. He felt nothing but contempt for the wave
of modern psychism. He hardly knew the mean-
ing of such words as “clairvoyance” and “ clair-
audience.” He had never felt the least desire to
join the Theosophical Society and to speculate in
theories of astral-plane life, or elementals. He at-
tended no meetings of the Psychical Research
Society, and knew no anxiety as to whether his
“aura” was black or blue; nor was he conscious
of the slightest wish to mix in with the revival of
cheap occultism which proves so attractive to
weak minds of mystical tendencies and unleashed
imaginations,

There were certain things he knew, but none he
cared to argue about; and he shrank instinctively
from attempting to put names to the contents of
this other region, knowing well that such names
could only limit and define things that, according
to any standards in use in the ordinary world, were
simply undefinable and illusive.

So that, although this was the way his mind
worked, there was clearly a very strong leaven of
common sense in Jones. Ina word, the man the

208 THE INSANITY OF JONES

world and the office knew as Jones was Jones.
The name summed him up and labelled him
correctly—John Enderby Jones.

Among the things that he knew, and therefore never
cared to speak or speculate about, one was that he
plainly saw himself as the inheritor of a long series
of past lives, the net result of painful evolution,
always as himself, of course, but in numerous
different bodies each determined by the behaviour
of the preceding one. The present John Jones was
the last result to date of all the previous thinking,
feeling, and doing of John Jones in earlier bodies
and in other centuries. He pretended to no details,
nor claimed distinguished ancestry, for he realised
his past must have been utterly commonplace and
insignificant to have produced his present ; but he
was just as sure he had been at this weary game for
ages as that he breathed, and it never occurred to him
to argue, to doubt, or to ask questions. And one
result of this belief was that his thoughts dwelt
upon the past rather than upon the future ; that he
read much history, and felt specially drawn to
certain periods whose spirit he understood in-
stinctively as though he had lived in them; and
that he found all religions uninteresting because,
almost without exception, they start from the
present and speculate ahead as to what men shall
become, instead of looking back and speculating
why men have got here as they are.

In the insurance office he did his work exceed-
ingly well, but without much personal ambition.
Men and women he regarded as the impersonal

THE INSANITY OF JONES 209

instruments for inflicting upon him the pain or
pleasure he had earned by his past workings, for
chance had no place in his scheme of things at
all; and while he recognised that the practical
world could not get along unless every man did
his work thoroughly and conscientiously, he took
no interest in the accumulation of fame or money
for himself, and simply, therefore, did his plain
duty, with indifference as to results. —.

In common with others who lead a strictly im-
personal life,he possessed the quality of utter bravery,
and was always ready to face any combination of
circumstances, no matter how terrible, because he
saw in them the just working-out of past causes
he had himself set in motion which could not
be dodged or modified. And whereas the majority
of people had little meaning for him, either by
way of attraction or repulsion, the moment he
met some one with whom he felt his past had
been vitally interwoven his whole inner being
leapt up instantly and shouted the fact in his face,
and he regulated his life with the utmost skill and
caution, like a sentry on watch for an enemy whose
feet could already be heard approaching.

Thus, while the great majority of men and women
left him uninfluenced—since he regarded them as
so many souls merely passing with him along the
great stream of evolution—there were, here and
there, individuals with whom he recognised that
his smallest intercourse was of the gravest import-
ance. These were persons with whom he knew
in every fibre of his being he had accounts to

fC)

210 THE INSANITY OF JONES

settle, pleasant or otherwise, arising out of dealings
in past lives ; and into his relations with these few,
therefore, he concentrated as it were the efforts
that most people spread over their intercourse with
a far greater number. By what means he picked
out these few individuals only those conversant
with the startling processes of the subconscious
memory may say, but the point was that Jones believed
the main purpose, if not quite the entire purpose,
of his present incarnation lay in his faithful and
thorough settling of these accounts, and that if he
sought to evade the least detail of such settling, no
matter how unpleasant, he would have lived in
vain, and would return to his next incarnation with
this added duty to perform. For according to his
beliefs there was no Chance, and could be no
ultimate shirking, and to avoid a problem was
merely to waste time and lose opportunities for
development.

And there was one individual with whom Jones
had long understood clearly he had a very large
account to settle, and towards the accomplishment
of which all the main currents of his being seemed
to bear him with unswerving purpose. For, when
he first entered the insurance office as a junior
clerk ten years before, and through a glass door
had caught sight of this man seated in an inner
room, one of his sudden overwhelming flashes of
intuitive memory had burst up into him from the
depths, and he had seen, as in a flame of blinding
light, a symbolical picture of the future rising out
of a dreadful past, and he had, without any act of

THE INSANITY OF JONES 211

definite volition, marked down this man for a real
account to be settled.

“With that man I shall have much to do,” he
said to himself, as he noted the big face look up
and meet his eye through the glass. “There is
something I cannot shirk—a vital relation out of
the past of both of us.”

And he went to his desk trembling a little, and
with shaking knees, as though the memory of some
terrible pain had suddenly laid its icy hand upon
his heart and touched the scar of a great horror.
It was a moment of genuine terror when their eyes
had met through the glass door, and he was con-
scious of an inward shrinking and loathing that
seized upon him with great violence and convinced
him in a single second that the settling of this
account would be almost, perhaps, more than he
could manage.

The vision passed as swiftly as it came, dropping
back again into the submerged region of his con-
sciousness; but he never forgot it, and the whole
of his life thereafter became a sort of natural though
undeliberate preparation for the fulfilment of the
great duty when the time should be ripe.

In those days—ten years ago—this man was the
Assistant Manager, but had since been promoted as
Manager to one of the company’s local branches ;
and soon afterwards Jones had likewise found him-
self transferred to this same branch. A little later,
again, the branch at Liverpool, one of the most
important, had been in peril owing to mismanage-
ment and defalcation, and the man had gone to

,)

212 ‘THE INSANITY OF JONES

take charge of it, and again, by mere chance appar-
ently, Jones had been promoted to the same place.
And this pursuit of the Assistant Manager had con-
tinued for several years, often, too, in the most
curious fashion; and though Jones had never ex-
changed a single word with him, or been so much
as noticed indeed by the great man, the clerk
understood perfectly well that these moves in the
game were all part of a definite purpose. Never
for one moment did he doubt that the Invisibles
behind the veil were slowly and surely arranging
the details of it all so as to lead up suitably to the
climax demanded by justice, a climax in which him-
self and the Manager would play the leading réles,

‘Tt is inevitable,” he said to himself, “and I feel
it may be terrible; but when the moment comes I
shall be ready, and I pray God that I may face it
properly and act like a man.”

Moreover, as the years passed, and nothing hap-
pened, he felt the horror closing in upon him with
steady increase, for the fact was Jones hated and
loathed the Manager with an intensity of feeling he
had never before experienced towards any human
being. He shrank from his presence, and from the
glance of his eyes, as though he remembered to
have suffered nameless cruelties at his hands; and
he slowly began to realise, moreover, that the matter
to be settled between them was one of very ancient
standing, and that the nature of the settlement was
a discharge of accumulated punishment which would
probably be very dreadful in the manner of its
fulfilment.

THE INSANITY OF JONES 213

When, therefore, the chief cashier one day
informed him that the man was to be in London
again—this time as General Manager of the head
office—and said that he was charged to find a
private secretary for him from among the best
clerks, and further intimated that the selection had
fallen upon himself, Jones accepted the promotion
quietly, fatalistically, yet with a degree of inward
loathing hardly to be described. For he saw in
this merely another move in the evolution of the
inevitable Nemesis which he simply dared not seek
to frustrate by any personal consideration ; and at
the same time he was conscious of a certain feeling
of relief that the suspense of waiting might soon be
mitigated. A secret sense of satisfaction, therefore,
accompanied the unpleasant change, and Jones was
able to hold himself perfectly well in hand when it
was carried into effect and he was formally intro-
duced as private secretary to the General Manager.

Now the Manager was a large, fat man, with a
very red face and bags beneath his eyes. Being
short-sighted, he wore glasses that seemed to
magnify his eyes, which were always a little blood-
shot. In hot weather a sort of thin slime covered
his cheeks, for he perspired easily. His head was
almost entirely bald, and over his turn-down collar
his great neck folded in two distinct reddish collops
of flesh. His hands were big and his fingers almost
massive in thickness.

He was an excellent business man, of sane judg-
ment and firm will, without enough imagination to
confuse his course of action by showing him

214 THE INSANITY OF JONES

possible alternatives ; and his integrity and ability
caused him to be held in universal respect by the
world of business and finance. In the important
regions of a man’s character, however, and at heart,
he was coarse, brutal almost to savagery, without
consideration for others, and as a result often
cruelly unjust to his helpless subordinates.

In moments of temper, which were not infre-
quent, his face turned a dull purple, while the top
of his bald head shone by contrast like white
marble, and the bags under his eyes swelled till it
seemed they would presently explode with a pop.
And at these times he presented a distinctly
repulsive appearance.

But to a private secretary like Jones, who did
his duty regardless of whether his employer was
beast or angel, and whose mainspring was principle
and not emotion, this made little difference.
Within the narrow limits in which any one could
satisfy such a man, he pleased the General Manager;
and more than once his piercing intuitive faculty,
amounting almost to clairvoyance, assisted the
chief in a fashion that served to bring the two
closer together than might otherwise have been the
case, and caused the man to respect in his assistant
a power of which he possessed not even the germ
himself. It was a curious relationship that grew up
between the two, and the cashier, who enjoyed the
credit of having made the selection, profited by it
indirectly as much as any one else.

So for some time the work or the office con-
tinued normally and very prosperously. John

THE INSANITY OF JONES 215

Enderby Jones received a good salary, and in the
outward appearance of the two chief characters in
this history there was little change noticeable,
except that the Manager grew fatter and redder,
and the secretary observed that his own hair was
beginning to show rather greyish at the temples.

There were, however, two changes in progress,
and they both had to do with Jones, and are
important to mention.

One was that he began to dream evilly. In the
region of deep sleep, where the possibility of signi-
ficant dreaming first develops itself, he was tor-
mented more. and more with vivid scenes and
pictures in which a tall thin man, dark and sinister
of countenance, and with bad eyes, was closely
associated with himself. Only the setting was that
of a past age, with costumes of centuries gone by,
and the scenes had to do with dreadful cruelties
that could not belong to modern life as he knew it.

The other change was also significant, but is not
so easy to describe, for he had in fact become
aware that some new portion of himself, hitherto
unawakened, had stirred slowly into life out of the
very depths of his consciousness. This new part
of himself amounted almost to another personality,
and he never observed its least manifestation with-
out a strange thrill at his heart.

For he understood that it had begun to watch
the Manager !

oo

II

IT was the habit of Jones, since he was compelled
to work among conditions that were utterly dis-
tasteful, to withdraw his mind wholly from business
once the day was over. During office hours he
kept the strictest possible watch upon himself, and
turned the key on all inner dreams, lest any sudden
uprush from the deeps should interfere with his
duty. But, once the working day was over, the
gates flew open, and he began to enjoy himself.

He read no modern books on the subjects that
interested him, and, as already said, he followed no
course of training, nor belonged to any society
that dabbled with half-told mysteries; but, once
released from the office desk in the Manager’s room,
he simply and naturally entered the other region,
because he was an old inhabitant, a rightful denizen,
and because he belonged there. It was, in fact,
really a case of dual personality ; and a carefully
drawn agreement existed between Jones-of-the-fire.
insurance-office and Jones-of-the-mysteries, by the
terms of which, under heavy penalties, neither
region claimed him out of hours.

For the moment he reached his rooms under the
roof in Bloomsbury, and had changed his city coat

THE INSANITY OF JONES 217,

to another, the iron doors of the office clanged far
behind him, and in front, before his very eyes, rolled
up the beautiful gates of ivory, and he entered into
the places of flowers and singing and wonderful
veiled forms. Sometimes he quite lost touch with
the outer world, forgetting to eat his dinner or
go to bed, and lay in a state of trance, his conscious-
ness working far out of the body. And on other
occasions he walked the streets on air, half-way
between the two regions, unable to distinguish
between incarnate and discarnate forms, and not
very far, probably, beyond the strata where poets,
saints, and the greatest artists have moved and
thought and found their inspiration. But this was
only when some insistent bodily claim prevented his
full release, and more often than not he was entirely
independent of his physical portion and free of the
real region, without let or hindrance.

One evening he reached home utterly exhausted
after the burden of the day’s work. The Manager
had been more than usually brutal, unjust, ill-
tempered, and Jones had been almost persuaded
out of his settled policy of contempt into answering
back. Everything seemed to have gone amiss, and
the man’s coarse, underbred nature had been in the
ascendant all day long: he had thumped the desk
with his great fists, abused, found fault unreasonably,
uttered outrageous things, and behaved generally
as he actually was—beneath the thin veneer of
acquired business varnish. He had done and said
everything to wound all that was woundable in an
ordinary secretary, and though Jones fortunately

218 THE INSANITY OF JONES

dwelt in a region from which he looked down upon
such a man as he might look down on the blunder-
ing of a savage animal, the strain had nevertheless
told severely upon him, and he reached home won-
dering for the first time in his life whether there
was perhaps a point beyond which he would be
unable to restrain himself any longer.

For something out of the usual had happened:
At the close of a passage of great stress between the
two, every nerve in the secretary's body tingling
from undeserved abuse, the Manager had suddenly
turned full upon him, in the corner of the private
room where the safes stood, in such a way that the
glare of his red eyes, magnified by the glasses,
looked straight into his own. And at this very
second that other personality in Jones—the one
that was ever watching—rose up swifty from the
deeps within and held a mirror to his face.

A moment of flame and vision rushed over him,
and for one single second—one merciless second of
clear sight—he saw the Manager as the tall dark
man of his evil dreams, and the knowledge
that he had suffered at his hands some awful injury
in the past crashed through his mind like the report
of a cannon:

It all flashed upon him and was gone, changing
him from fire to ice, and then back again to fire;
and he left the office with the certain conviction in
his heart that the time for his final settlement with
the man, the time for the inevitable retribution,
was at last drawing very near.

According to his invariable custom, however, he

THE INSANITY OF JONES 219

succeeded in putting the memory of all this un-
pleasantness out of his mind with the changing of
his office coat, and after dozing a little in his leather
chair before the fire, he started out as usual for
dinner in the Soho French restaurant, and began to
dream himself away into the region of flowers and
singing, and to commune with the Invisibles that
were the very sources of his real life and being.

For it was in this way that his mind worked, and
the habits of years had crystallised into rigid lines
along which it was now necessary and inevitable
for him to act.

At the door of the little restaurant he stopped
short, a half-remembered appointment in his mind.
He had made an engagement with some one, but
where, or with whom, had entirely slipped his
memory. He thought it was for dinner, or else to
meet just after dinner, and for a second it came
back to him that it had something to do with the
office, but, whatever it was, he was quite unable to
recall it, and a reference to his pocketiengagement
book showed only a blank page. Evidently he had
even omitted to enter it ; and afterstanding a moment
vainly trying to recall either the time, place, or
person, he went in and sat down.

But though the details had escaped him, his sub-
conscious memory seemed to know all about it, for
he experienced a sudden sinking of the heart,
accompanied by a sense of foreboding anticipation,
and felt that beneath his exhaustion there lay a
centre of tremendous excitement. The emotion
caused by the engagement was at work, and would

220 THE INSANITY OF JONES

presently cause the actual details of the appointment
to reappear. .

Inside the restaurant the feeling increased, instead
of passing: some one was waiting for him some-
where—some one whom he had definitely arranged
to meet. He was expected by a person that very
night and just about that very time. But by whom ?
Where ? Acurious inner trembling came over him,
and he made a strong effort to hold himself in hand
and to be ready for anything that might come.

And then suddenly came the knowledge that the
place of appointment was this very restaurant, and,
further, that the person he had promised to meet
was already here, waiting somewhere quite close
beside him.

He looked up nervously and began to examine
the faces round him. The majority of the diners
were Frenchmen, chattering loudly with much
gesticulation and laughter; and there was a fair
sprinkling of clerks like himself who came because
the prices were low and the food good, but there
was no single face that he recognised until his
glance fell upon the occupant of the corner seat
opposite, generally filled by himself.

“ There’s the man who’s waiting for me !” thought
Jones instantly.

He knew it at once. The man, he saw, was
sitting well back into the corner, with a thick over-
coat buttoned tightly up to the chin. His skin was
very white, and a heavy black beard grew far up
over his cheeks. At first the secretary took him for
a stranger, but when he looked up and their eyes

THE INSANITY OF JONES 221

met, a sense of familiarity flashed across him, and
for a second or two Jones imagined he was staring
at a man he had known years before. For, barring
the beard, it was the face of an elderly clerk who
had occupied the next desk to his own when he first
entered the service of the insurance company, and
had shown him the most painstaking kindness
and sympathy in the early difficulties of his work.
But a moment later the illusion passed, for he
remembered that Thorpe had been dead at least five
years, The similarity of the eyes was obviously
a mere suggestive trick of memory.

The two men stared at one another for several
seconds, and then Jones began to act instinctively,
and because he had to. He crossed over and took
the vacant seat at the other’s table, facing him ; for
he felt it was somehow imperative to explain why he
was late, and howit was he had almost forgotten
the engagement altogether.

No honest excuse, however, came to his as-
sistance, though his mind had begun to work
furiously.

“Yes, you are late,’ said the man quietly, before
he could find a single word to utter. “‘ But it doesn’t
matter. Also, you had forgotten the appointment,
but that makes no difference either.”

“T knew—that there was an engagement,” Jones
stammered, passing his hand over his forehead;
but somehow ie

“You will recall it presently,” continued the
other in a gentle voice, and smiling a little. “It was
in deep sleep last night we arranged this, and the

222 THE INSANITY OF JONES

unpleasant occurrences of to-day have for the
moment obliterated it,”

A faint memory stirred within him as the man
spoke, and a grove of trees with moving forms
hovered before his eyes and then vanished again,
while for an instant the stranger seemed to be
capable of self-distortion and to have assumed vast
proportions, with wonderful flaming eyes.

“Oh!” he gasped. “It was there—in the other
region?”

“Of course,” said the other, with a smile that
illumined his whole face. “You will remember
presently, all in good time, and meanwhile you have
no cause to feel afraid.”

There was a wonderful soothing quality in the
man’s voice, like the whispering of a great wind,
and the clerk felt calmer at once. They sat a little
while longer, but he could not remember that they
talked much or ate anything. He only recalled
afterwards that the head waiter came up and whis-
pered something in his ear, and that he glanced
round and saw the other people were looking at
him curiously, some of them laughing, and that
his companion then got up and led the way out
of the restaurant.

They walked hurriedly through the streets, neither
of them speaking ; and Jones was so intent upon
getting back the whole history of the affair from the
region of deep sleep, that he barely noticed the way
they took. Yet it was clear he knew where they
were bound for just as well as his companion, for
he crossed the streets often ahead of him, diving

)

THE INSANITY OF JONES 223!

down alleys without hesitation, and the other
followed always without correction.

The pavements were very full, and the usual
night crowds of London were surging to and fro in
the glare of the shop lights, but somehow no one
impeded their rapid movements, and they seemed
to pass through the people as if they were smoke.
And, as they went, the pedestrians and traffic grew
less and less, and they soon passed the Mansion
House and the deserted space in front of the Royal
Exchange, and so on down Fenchurch Street and
within sight of the Tower of London, rising dim
and shadowy in the smoky air.

Jones remembered all this perfectly well, and
thought it was his intense preoccupation that made
the distance seem so short. But it was when the
Tower was left behind and they turned northwards
that he began to notice how altered everything was,
and saw that they were in a neighbourhood where
houses were suddenly scarce, and lanes and fields
beginning, and that their only light was the stars
overhead. And, as the deeper consciousness more
and more asserted itself to the exclusion of the
surface happenings of his mere body during the
day, the sense of exhaustion vanished, and he
realised that he was moving somewhere in the
region of causes behind the veil, beyond the gross
deceptions of the senses, and released from the
clumsy spell of space and time.

Without great surprise, therefore, he turned and
saw that his companion had altered, had shed his
‘overcoat and black hat, and was moving beside him

224 THE INSANITY OF JONES

absolutely without sound. For a brief second he
saw him, tall as a tree, extending through space like
a great shadow, misty and wavering of outline,
followed by a sound like wings in the darkness;
but, when he stopped, fear clutching at his heart,
the other resumed his former proportions, and
Jones could plainly see his normal outline against
the green field behind.

Then the secretary saw him fumbling at his neck,
and at the same moment the black beard came away
from the face in his hand.

“Then you are Thorpe!” he gasped, yet some-
how without overwhelming surprise.

They stood facing one another in the lonely lane,
trees meeting overhead and hiding the stars, and a
sound of mournful sighing among the branches.

“JT am Thorpe,” was the answer in a voice that
almost seemed part of the wind “And I have
come out of our far past to help you, for my debt
to you is large, and in this life I had but small
opportunity to repay.” ¥

Jones thought quickly of the man’s kindness to
him in the office, and a great wave of feeling surged
through him as he began to remember dimly the
friend by whose side he had already climbed, per-
haps through vast ages of his soul’s evolution.

“To help me now ?” he whispered.

“You will understand me when you enter into
your real memory and recall how great a debt I
have to pay for old faithful kindnesses of long ago,”
sighed the other in a voice like falling wind.

“Between us, though, there can be no question

THE INSANITY OF JONES 225

of debi,” Jones heard himself saying, and remem-
bered the reply that floated to him on the air and
the smile that lightened for a moment the stern eyes
facing him.

“Not of debt, indeed, but of privilege.”

Jones felt his heart leap out towards this man,
this old friend, tried by centuries and still faithful.
He made a movement to seize his hand. But the
other shifted like a thing of mist, and for a
moment the clerk’s head swam and his eyes seemed
to fail.

“Then you are dead ?" he said under his breath
with a slight shiver

“Five years ago | left the body you knew," re.
plied Thorpe ‘'l tried to help you then instinc-
tively, not fully recognising you. But now I can
accomplish far more.”

With an awful sense of foreboding and dread in
his heart, the secretary was beginning to under-
stand.

“It has to do with—with—— ?”

“ Your past dealings with the Manager,” came the
answer, as the wind rose louder among the branches
overhead and carried off the remainder of the sen
tence into the air. ;

Jones’s memory, which was just beginning to stir
among the deepest layers of all, shut down sud-
denly with a snap, and he followed his companion
over fields and down sweet-smelling lanes where the
air was fragrant and cool, till they came to a large
house, standing gaunt and lonely in the shadows at
the edge of a wood. It was wrapped in utter still-

P

226 THE INSANITY OF JONES

ness, with windows heavily draped in black, and the
clerk, as he looked, felt such an overpowering wave
of sadness invade him that his eyes began to burn
and smart, and he was conscious of a desire to shed
tears.

The key made a harsh noise as it turned in the
lock, and when the door swung open into a lofty
hall they heard a confused sound of .ustling and
whispering, as of a great throng of pecple pressing
forward to meet them. The air seemed full of
swaying movement, and Jones was certain he saw
hands held aloft and dim faces claiming recognition,
while in his heart, already oppressed by the ap-
proaching burden of vast accumulated memories,
he was aware of the uncoiling of something that had
been asleep for ages.

As they advanced he heard the doors close with a
muffled thunder behind them, and saw that the
shadows seemed to retreat and shrink away towards
the interior of the house, carrying the hands and
aces with them. He heard the wind singing round
the walls and over the roof, and its wailing voice
mingled with the sound of deep, collective breathing
that filled the house like the murmur of a sea; and
as they walked up the broad staircase and through
the vaulted rooms, where pillars rose like the stems
of trees, he knew that the building was crowded, row
upon row, with the thronging memories of his own
long past.

“This is the House of the Past,” whispered Thorpe
beside him, as they moved silently from room to
room; “the house of your past. It is full from

THE INSANITY OF JONES 227

cellar to roof with the memories of what you have
done, thought, and felt from the earliest stages of
your evolution until now.

“The house climbs up almost to the clouds, and
stretches back into the heart of the wood you saw
outside, but the remoter halls are filled with the
ghosts of ages ago too many to count, and even if
we were able to waken them you could not remember
them now. Some day, though, they will come and
claim you, and you must know them, and answer
their questions, for they can never rest till they have
exhausted themselves again through you, and justice
has been perfectly worked out.

“ But now follow me closely, and you shall see the
particular memory for which I am permitted to be
your guide, so that you may know and understand
a great force in your present life, and may use the
sword of justice, or rise to the level of a great for-
giveness, according to your degree of power.”

Icy thrills ran through the trembling clerk, and as
he walked slowly beside his companion he heard
from the vaults below, as well as from more distant
regions of the vast building, the stirring and sighing
of the serried ranks of sleepers, sounding in the still
air like a chord swept from unseen strings stretched
somewhere among the very foundations of the house.

Stealthily, picking their way among the great
pillars, they moved up the sweeping staircase and
through several dark corridors and halls, and pre-
sently stopped outside a small door in an archway
where the shadows were very deep.

‘Remain close by my side, and remember to utter

4

228 THE INSANITY OF JONES

no cry,” whispered the voice of his guide, and as the
clerk turned to reply.he saw his face was stern to
whiteness and even shone a little in the darkness.

The room they entered seemed at first to be pitchy
black, but gradually the secretary perceived a faint
reddish glow against the farther end, and thought he
saw figures moving silently to and fie)

“ Now watch!” whispered Thorpe, as they pressed
close to the wall near the door and waited. “ But
remember to keep absolute silence. It is a torture
scene.”

Jones felt utterly afraid, and would have turned
to fly if he dared, for an indescribable terror seized
him and his knees shook; but some power that
made escape impossible held him remorselessly
there, and with eyes glued on the spots of light he
crouched against the wall and waited.

The figures began to move more swiftly, each in
its own dim light that shed no radiance beyond
itself, and he heard a soft clanking of chains and
the voice of a man groaning in pain. Then came
the sound of a door closing, and thereafter Jones
saw but one figure, the figure of an old man, naked
entirely, and fastened with chains to an iron frame-
work on the floor, His memory gave a sudden
leap of fear as he looked, for the features and
white beard were familiar, and he recalled them as
though of yesterday.

The other figures had disappeared, and the old
man, became the centre of the terrible picture.
Slowly, with ghastly groans, as the heat below him
increased into a steady glow, the aged body rose

THE INSANITY OF JONES 229

in a curve of agony, resting on the iron frame only
where the chains held wrists and ankles fast.
Cries and gasps filled the air, and Jones felt exactly
as though they came from his own throat, and as
if the chains were burning into his own wrists and
ankles, and the heat scorching the skin and flesh
upon his own back. He began to writhe and twist
himself.

“Spain!” whispered the voice at his side, “and
four hundred years ago.”

“ And the purpose ?” gasped the perspiring clerk,
though he knew quite well what the answer
must be.

“To extort the name of a friend, to his death
and betrayal,” came the reply through the darkness.

A sliding panel opened with a little rattle in the
wall immediately above the rack, and a face, framed
in the same red glow, appeared and looked down
upon the dying victim. Jones was only just able to
choke a scream, for he recognised the tall dark
man of hisdreams. With horrible, gloating eyes he
gazed down upon the writhing form of the old man,
and his lips moved as in speaking, though no words
were actually audible.

“He asks again for the name,” explained the
other, as the clerk struggled with the intense hatred
and loathing that threatened every moment to result
in screams and action. His ankles and wrists
pained him so that he could scarcely keep still, but
a merciless power held him to the scene.

He saw the old man, with a fierce cry, raise his
tortured head and spit up into the face at the panel,

230 THE INSANITY OF JONES

and then the shutter slid back again, and a moment
later the increased glow beneath the body, accom-
panied by awful writhing, told of the application of
further heat. There came the odour of burning
flesh; the white beard curled and burned to a
crisp; the body fell back limp upon the red-hot
iron, and then shot up again in fresh agony; cry
after cry, the most awful in the world, rang out with
deadened sound between the four walls ; and again
the panel slid back creaking, and revealed the
dreadful face of the torturer.

Again the name was asked for, and again it was
refused; and this time, after the closing of the
panel, a door opened, and the tall thin man with
the evil face came slowly into the chamber. His
features were savage with rage and disappointment,
and in the dull red glow that fell upon them he
looked like a very prince of devils. In his hand
he held a pointed iron at white heat.

“Now the murder!” came from Thorpe in a
whisper that sounded as if it was outside the
building and far away.

Jones knew quite well what was coming, but was
unable even to close his eyes. He felt all the fearful
pains himself just as though he were actually the
sufferer ; but now, as he stared, he felt something
more besides ; and when the tall man deliberately
approached the rack and plunged the heated iron
first into one eye and then into the other, he heard
the faint fizzing of it, and felt his own eyes burst in
frightful pain from his head. At the same moment,
unable longer to control himself, he uttered a wild

THE INSANITY OF JONES 23r

shriek and dashed forward to seize the torturer and
tear him to a thousand pieces.

Instantly, in a flash, the entire scene vanished ;
darkness rushed in to fill the room, and he felt
himself lifted off his feet by some force like a great
wind and borne swiftly away into space.

When he recovered his senses he was standing
just outside the house and the figure of Thorpe was
beside him in the gloom. The great doors were in
the act of closing behind him, but before they shut
he fancied he caught a glimpse of an immense
veiled figure standing upon the threshold, with
flaming eyes, and in his hand a bright weapon
like a shining sword of fire.

“Come quickly now—all is over!” Thorpe
whispered.

“And the dark man—— ?” gasped the clerk, as
he moved swiftly by the other’s side.

“Tn this present life is the Manager of the
company.”

“ And the victim ?”

“Was yourself!”

“And the friend he—I refused to betray ?”

“TJ was that friend,’ answered Thorpe, his voice
with every moment sounding more and more like
the cry of the wind. “You gave your life in agony
to save mine.”

“ And again, in this life, we have all three been
together ?”

“Yes. Such forces are not soon or easily ex-
hausted, and justice is not satisfied till all have
reaped what they sowed.”

232 THE INSANITY OF JONES

Jones had an odd feeling that he was slipping
away into some other state of consciousness.
Thorpe began to seem unreal. Presently he would
be unable to ask more questions. He felt utterly sick
and faint with it all, and his strength was ebbing.

“Oh, quick!” he cried, “now tell me more. Why
did I see this ? What must I do?”

The wind swept across the field on their right
and entered the wood beyond with a great roar, and
the air round him seemed filed with voices and the
rushing of hurried movement.

“To the ends of justice,” answered the other, as
though speaking out of the centre of the wind and
from a distance, ‘‘ which sometimes is entrusted to
the hands of those who suffered and were strong.
One wrong cannot be put right by another wrong,
but your life has been so worthy that the oppor-
tunity is given to if

The voice grew fainter and fainter, already it was
far overhead with the rushing wind.

“You may punish or Here Jones lost sight
of Thorpe’s figure altogether, for he seemed to have
vanished and melted away into the wood behind
him. His voice sounded far across the trees, very
weak, and ever rising.

“Or if you can rise to the level of a great forgive-
ness ”

The voice became inaudible. .. . The wind came
crying out of the wood again.

* * * * *

Jones shivered and stared about him. He shook

himself violently and rubbed his eyes. The room

THE INSANITY OF JONES 233

was dark, the fire was out; he felt cold and stiff.
He got up out of his armchair, still trembling, and
lit the gas. Outside the wind was howling, and
when he looked at his watch he saw that it was
very late and he must go to bed.

He had not even changed his office coat; he
must have fallen asleep in the chair as soon as
he came in, and he had slept for several hours.
Certainly he had eaten no dinner, for he felt
ravenous,

Ill

NEXT day, and for several weeks thereafter, the
business of the office went on as usual, and Jones
did his work well and behaved outwardly with
perfect propriety. No more visions troubled him,
and his relations with the Manager became, if any-
thing, somewhat smoother and easier.

True, the man looked a little different, because
the clerk kept seeing him with his inner and outer
eye promiscuously, so that one moment he was
broad and red-faced, and the next he was tall, thin,
and dark, enveloped, as it were, in a sort of black
atmosphere tinged with red. While at times a con-
fusion of the two sights took place, and Jones saw
the two faces mingled in a composite countenance
that was very horrible indeed to contemplate. But,
beyond this occasional change in the outward
appearance of the Manager, there was nothing that
the secretary noticed as the result of his vision, and
business went on more or less as before, and perhaps
even with a little less friction.

But in the rooms under the roof in Bloomsbury
it was different, for there it was perfectly clear to
Jones that Thorpe had come to take up his abode
with him. He never saw him, but he knew all the

’ THE INSANITY OF JONES 235

time he was there: Every night on returning from
his work he was greeted by the well-known whisper,
“Be ready when I give the sign!” and often in the
night he woke up suddenly out of deep sleep and
was aware that Thorpe had that minute moved
away from his bed and was standing waiting and
watching somewhere in the darkness of the room.
Often he follewed him down the stairs, though the
dim gas jet on the landings never revealed his out-
line; and sometimes he did not come into the room
at all, but hovered outside the window, peering
through the dirty panes, or sending his whisper into
the chamber in the whistling of the wind.

For Thorpe had come to stay, and Jones knew
that he would not get rid of him until he had ful-
filled the ends of justice and accomplished the
purpose for which he was waiting.

Meanwhile, as the days passed, he went through
a tremendous struggle with himself, and came to
the perfectly honest decision that the “level of a
great forgiveness ” was impossible for him, and that
he must therefore accept the alternative and use the
secret knowledge placed in his hands—and execute
justice. And once this decision was arrived at, he
noticed that Thorpe no longer left him alone during
the day as before, but now accompanied him to the
office and stayed more or less at his side all through
business hours as well. His whisper made itself
heard in the streets and in the train, and even in the
Manager’s room where he worked; sometimes
warning, sometimes urging, but never for a moment
suggesting the abandonment of the main purpose,

236 THE INSANITY OF JONES

and more than once so plainly audible that the
clerk felt certain others must have heard it as well
as himself.

The obsession was complete: He felt he was
always under Thorpe’s eye day and night, and he
knew he must acquit himself like a man when the
moment came, or prove a failure in his own sight as
well in the sight of the other.

And now that his mind was made up, nothing
could prevent the carrying out of the sentence. He
bought a pistol, and spent his Saturday afternoons
practising at a target in lonely places along the
Essex shore, marking out in the sand the exact
measurements of the Manager’s room. Sundayshe
occupied in like fashion, putting up at an inn over-
night for the purpose, spending the money that
usually went into the savings bank on travelling
expenses and cartridges. Everything was done very
thoroughly, for there must be no possibility of
failure ; and at the end of several weeks he had
become so expert with his six-shooter that at a
distance of 25 feet, which was the greatest length
of the Manager’s room, he could pick the inside out
of a halfpenny nine times out of a dozen, and leave
a clean, unbroken rim.

There was not the slightest desire to delay. He
had thought the matter over from every point of
view his mind could reach, and _ his purpose was
inflexible. Indeed, he felt proud to think that he
had been chosen as the instrument of justice in the
infliction of so well-deserved and so terrible a
punishment. Vengeance may have had some part

THE INSANITY OF JONES 237

in his decision, but he could not help that, for he
still felt at times the hot chains burning his wrists
and ankles with fierce agony through to the bone.
He remembered the hideous pain of his slowly
roasting back, and the point when he thought death
must intervene to end his suffering, but instead new
powers of endurance had surged up in him, and
awful further stretches of pain had opened up, and
unconsciousness seemed farther off than ever.
Then at last the hot irons in his eyes.... It all
came back to him, and caused him to break out in icy
perspiration at the mere thought of it. . the vile
face at the panel . the expression of the dark
face.. . His fingers worked. His blood boiled.
It was utterly impossible to keep the idea of ven-
geance altogether out of his mind.

Several times he was temporarily baulked of his
prey. Odd things happened to stop him when he
was on the point of action. The first day, for
instance, the Manager fainted from the heat.
Another time when he had decided to do the deed,
the Manager did not come down to the office at all.
And a third time, when his hand was actually in his
hip pocket, he suddenly heard Thorpe’s horrid
whisper telling him to wait, and turning, he saw
that the head cashier had entered the room noise-
lessly without his noticing it. Thorpe evidently
knew what he was about, and did not intend to let
the clerk bungle the matter.

He fancied, moreover, that the head cashier was
watching him. He was always meeting him in
unexpected corners and places, and the cashier

238 THE INSANITY OF JONES

never seemed to have an adequate excuse for being
there. His movements seemed suddenly of particu-
lar interest to others in the office as well, for clerks
were always being sent to ask him unnecessary
questions, and there was apparently a general
design to keep him under a sort of surveillance, so
that he was never much alone with the Manager in
the private room where they worked. And once
the cashier had even gone so far as to suggest that
he could take his holiday earlier than usual if he
liked, as the work had been very arduous of late and
the heat exceedingly trying,

He noticed, too, that he was sometimes followed
by a certain individual in the streets, a careless-
looking sort of man, who never came face to face
with him, or actually ran into him, but who was al-
ways in his train or omnibus, and whose eye he often
caught observing him over the top of his newspaper,
and who on one occasion was even waiting at the
door of his lodgings when he came out to dine.

There were other indications too, of various sorts,
that led him to think something was at work to
defeat his purpose, and that he must act at once
before these hostile forces could prevent.

And so the end came very swiftly, and was
thoroughly approved by Thorpe.

It was towards the close of July, and one of the
hottest days London had ever known, for the City
was like an oven, and the particles of dust seemed
to burn the throats of the unfortunate toilers in
street and office. The portly Manager, who suffered
cruelly owing to his size, came down perspiring and

if

THE INSANITY OF JONES —~— 239

gasping with the heat. He carried a light-coloured
umbrella to protect his head.

“He'll want something more than that, though !”
Jones laughed quietly to himself when he saw him
enter.

The pistol was safely in his hip pocket, every one
of its six chambers loaded.

The Manager saw the smile on his face, and gave
him a long steady look as he sat down to his desk
in the corner. A few minutes later he touched the
bell for the head cashier—a single ring—and then
asked Jones to fetch some papers from another safe
in the room upstairs.

A deep inner trembling seized the secretary as he
noticed these precautions, for he saw that the hostile
forces were at work against him, and yet he felt he
could delay no longer and must act that very morn-
ing, interference or no interference. However, he
went obediently up in the lift to the next floor, and
while fumbling with the combination of the safe,
known only to himself, the cashier, and the Manager,
he again heard Thorpe’s horrid whisper just behind
him :

“You must do it to-day ! You must do it to-day |”

He came down again with the papers, and found
_ the Manager alone. The room was like a furnace,
and a wave of dead heated air met him in the face
as he went in. The moment he passed the doorway
he realised that he had been the subject of conversa-
tion between the head cashier and his enemy. They
had been discussing him. Perhaps an inkling of his
secret had somehow got into their minds, They

240 THE INSANITY OF JONES

had been watching him for days past. They had
become suspicious.

Clearly, he must act now, or let the opportunity
slip by perhaps for ever He heard Thorpe’s voice
in his ear, but this time 1t was no mere whisper, but
a plain human voice, speaking out loud.

“Now!” it said “Doitnow!

The room was empty. Only the Manager and
himself were in it.

Jones turned from his desk where he had been
standing, and locked the door leading into the main
office. He saw the army of clerks. scribbling in
their shirt-sleeves, for the upper half of the door was
of glass. He had perfect control of himself, and his
heart was beating steadily.

The Manager, hearing the key turn in the lock,
looked up sharply.

“What’s that you’re doing ?” he asked quickly.

“Only locking the door, sir,”” replied the secre-
tary in a quite even voice.

“Why? Who told you to——?"

“The voice of Justice, sir,” replied Jones, looking
steadily into the hated face.

The Manager looked black for a moment, and
stared angrily across the room at him. Then
suddenly his expression changed as he stared, and
he tried to smile. It was meant to be a kind
smile evidently, but it only succeeded in being
frightened.

“That is a good idea in this weather,” he said
lightly, “but it would be much better to lock it on
the outside, wouldn’t it, Mr. Jones ?””

THE INSANITY OF JONES 241

“T think not, sir. You might escape me then.
Now you can’t.”

Jones took his pistol out and pointed it at the
other’s face. Down the barrel he saw the features
of the tall dark man, evil and sinister. Then the
outline trembled a little and the face of the Manager
slipped back into its place. It was white as death,
and shining with perspiration.

“You tortured me to death four hundred years
ago,” said the clerk in the same steady voice, “and
now the dispensers of justice have chosen me to
punish you.” |

The Manager’s face turned to flame, and then
back to chalk again. He made a quick movement
towards the telephone bell, stretching out a hand to
reach it, but at the same moment Jones pulled the
trigger and the wrist was shattered, splashing the
wall behind with blood.

“That’s one place where the chains burnt,” he
said quietly to himself. His hand was absolutely
steady, and he felt that he was a hero.

The Manager was on his feet, with a scream of
pain, supporting himself with his right hand on the
desk in front of him, but Jones pressed the trigger
again, and a bullet flew into the other wrist, so that
the big man, deprived of support, fell forward with
a crash on to the desk.

“You damned madman !” shrieked the Manager,
“ Drop that pistol !”

“That’s another place,” was all Jones said, still
taking careful aim for another shot.
_ The big man,screaming and blundering, scrambled
Q

242 THE INSANITY OF JONES

beneath the desk, making frantic efforts to hide, but
the secretary took a step forward and fired two shots
in quick succession into his projecting legs, hitting
first one ankle and then the other, and smashing
them horribly.

“Two more places where the chains burnt,” he
said, going a little nearer.

The Manager, still shrieking, tried desperately to
squeeze his bulk behind the shelter of the opening
beneath the desk, but he was far too large, and his
bald head protruded through on the other side.
Jones caught him by the scruff of his great neck and
dragged him yelping out on to the carpet. He was
covered with blood, and flopped helplessly upon his
broken wrists.

“Be quick now!” cried the voice of Thorpe.

There was a tremendous commotion and banging
at the door, and Jones gripped his pistol tightly.
Something seemed to crash through his brain,
clearing it for a second, so that he thought he saw
beside him a great veiled figure, with drawn sword
and flaming eyes, and sternly approving attitude.

“Remember the eyes! Remember the eyes!”
hissed Thorpe in the air above him.

Jones felt like a god, with a god’s power. Ven-
geance disappeared from his mind. He was acting
impersonally as an instrument in the hands of the
Invisibles who dispense justiceand balance accounts.
He bent down and put the barrel close into the
other’s face, smiling a little as he saw the childish
efforts of the arms to cover his head. Then he
pulled the trigger, and a bullet went straight into

THE INSANITY OF JONES 243

the right eye, blackening the skin. Moving the
pistol two inches the other way, he sent another
bullet crashing into the left eye. Then he stood
upright over his victim with a deep sigh of satisfaction.

The Manager wriggled convulsively for the space
of a single second, and then lay still in death.

There was not a moment to lose, for the door was
already broken in and violent hands were at his
neck, Jones put the pistol to his temple and once
more pressed the trigger with his finger.

But this time there was no report. Only a little
dead click answered the pressure, for the secretary
had forgotten that the pistol had only six chambers,
and that he had used them all. He threw the use-
less weapon on to the floor, laughing a little out
loud, and turned, without a struggle, to give him-
self up.

“T had to do it,” he said quietly, while they tied
him. “It was simply my duty! And now I am
ready to face the consequences, and Thorpe will be
proud of me. For justice has been done and the
gods are satisfied.”

He made not the slightest resistance, and when
the two policemen marched him off through the
crowd of shuddering little clerks in the office, he
again saw the veiled figure moving majestically in
front of him, making slow sweeping circles with the
flaming sword, to keep back the host of faces that
were thronging in upon him from the Other
Region.

THE DANCE OF DEATH

BROWNE went to the dance feeling genuinely
depressed, for the doctor had just warned him that
his heart was weak and that he must be exceedingly
careful in the matter of exertion:

“ Dancing ?” he asked, with that assumed light-
ness some natures affect in the face of a severe
shock—the plucky instinct to conceal pain.

“Well—in moderation, perhaps,” hummed the
doctor. “ Not wildly!” he added, with a smile that
betrayed something more than mere professional
sympathy.

At any other time Browne would probably have
laughed, but the doctor’s serious manner puta touch
of ice on the springs of laughter. At the age of
twenty-six one hardly realises death ; life is still end-
less; and itis only old people who have “ hearts” and
such-like afflictions, So it was that the professional
dictum came as a real shock ; and with it too, asa
sudden revelation, came that little widening of
sympathy for others that is part of every deep
experience as the years roll up and pass. ;

At first he thought of sending an excuse. He
went about carefully, making the "buses stop dead
before he got out, and going very slowly up steps,

246 THE DANCE OF DEATH

Then gradually he grew more accustomed to the
burden of his dread secret: the commonplace
events of the day; the hated drudgery of the office,
where he was an underpaid clerk; the contact with
other men who bore similar afflictions with assumed
indifference; the fault-finding of the manager,
making him fearful of his position—all this helped
to reduce the sense of first alarm, and, instead of
sending an excuse, he went to the dance, as we have
seen, feeling deeply depressed, and moving all the
time as if he carried in his side a brittle glass globe
that the least jarring might break into a thousand
pieces.

The spontaneous jollity natural to a boy and girl
dance served, however, to emphasise vividly the
contrast of his own mood, and to make him very
conscious again of his little hidden source of pain.
But, though he would gladly have availed himself
of a sympathetic ear among the many there whom
he knew intimately, he nevertheless exercised the
restraint natural to his character, and avoided any
reference to the matter that bulked so largely in his
consciousness, Once or twice he was tempted, but
a prevision of the probable conversation that would
ensue stopped him always in time: “Oh, I amso
sorry, Mr. Browne, and you mustn’t dance too hard,
you know,’ and then his careless laugh as he
remarked that it didn’t matter a bit, and his little
joke as he whirled his partner off for another spin.

He knew, of course, there was nothing very sensa-
tional about being told that one’s heart was weak,
Even the doctor had smiled a little; and he now

THE DANCE OF DEATH 247

recalled more than one acquaintance who had the
same trouble and made light of it. Yet it sounded
in Browne’s life a note of profound and sinister
gloom. It snatched beyond his reach at one fell
swoop all that he most loved and enjoyed, destroying
a thousand dreams, and painting the future a dull
drab colour without hope. He was an idealist at
heart, hating the sordid routine of the life he led as
a business underling. His dreams were of the open
air, of mountains, forests, and great plains, of the
sea, and of the lonely places of the world. Wind
and rain spoke intimately to his soul, and the storms
of heaven, as he heard them raging at night round
his high room in Bloomsbury, stirred savage yearn-
ings that haunted him for days afterwards with the
voices of the desert. Sometimes during the lunch
hour, when he escaped temporarily from the artifi-
cial light and close air of his high office stool, to see
the white clouds sailing by overhead, and to hear
the wind singing in the wires, it set such a fever
in his blood that for the remainder of the after-
noon he found it impossible to concentrate on his
work, and thus exasperated the loud-voiced manager
almost to madness.

Having no expectations, and absolutely no prac-
tical business ability, he was fortunate, however, in
having a “place” at all, and the hard fact that pro-
motion was unlikely made him all the more careful
to keep his dreams in their place, to do his work as
well as possible, and to save what little he could.

His holidays were the only points of light in an
otherwise dreary existence. And one day, when he

248 THE DANCE OF DEATH

should have saved enough, he looked forward
vaguely to a life close to Nature, perhaps a shepherd
on a hundred hills, a dweller in the woods, within
sound of his beloved trees and waters, where the
smell of the earth and camp fire would be ever in
his nostrils, and the running stream always ready
to bear his boat swiftly away into happiness.

And now the knowledge that he had a weak heart
came to spoil everything. It shook his dream to
the very foundations. It depressed him utterly.
Any moment the blow might fall. It might catch
him in the water, swimming, or half-way up the
mountain, or midway in one of his lonely tramps,
just when his enjoyment depended most upon his
being reckless and forgetful of bodily limitations—
that freedom of the spirit in the wilderness he so
loved. He might even be forced to spend his
holiday, to say nothing of the dream of the far
future, in some farmhouse “ quietly,” instead of
gloriously in the untrodden wilds. The thought
made him angry with pain. All day he was
haunted and dismayed, and all day he heard the
wind whispering among branches and the water
lapping somewhere against sandy banks in the
sun.

The dance was a small subscription affair, hastily
arranged and happily informal. It took place ina
large hall that was used in the daytime as a gym-
nasium, but the floor was good and the music more
than good. Foils and helmets hung round the walls,
and high up under the brown rafters were ropes,
rings, and trapezes coiled away out of reach, their

THE DANCE OF DEATH 249

unsightliness further concealed by an array of
brightly coloured flags. Only the light was not of
the best, for the hall was very long, and the gallery
at the fer end loomed in a sort of twilight that was
further deepened by the shadows of the flags over-
head. But its benches afforded excellent sitting-out
places, where strong light was not always an essen-
tial to happiness, and no one dreamed of finding
fault.

At first he danced cautiously, but by degrees the
spirit of the time and place relieved his depression
and helped him to forget. He had probably exag-
gerated the importance of his malady. Lots of other
fellows, even as young as he was, had weak hearts
and thought nothing of it. All the time, however,
there was an undercurrent of sadness and disap-
pointment not to be denied. Something had gone
out of life. A note of darkness had creptin. He
found his partners dull, and they no doubt found
him still duller.

Yet this dance, with nothing apparently to distin-
guish it from a hundred others, stood out in all his
‘ experience with an indelible red mark against it.
It is a common trick of Nature—and a profoundly
significant one—that, just when despair is deepest,
she waves a wand before the weary eyes and does
her best to waken an impossible hope. Her idea,
presumably, being to keep her victim going actively
to the very end of the chapter, lest through indiffer-
ence he should lose something of the lesson she
wishes to teach.

Thus it was that, midway in the dance, Browne's

260 THE DANCE OF DEATH

listless glance fell upon a certain girl whose appear-
ance instantly galvanised him into a state of keenest
possible desire. A flash of white light entered his
heart and set him all on fire to know her. She
attracted him tremendously She was dressed in
pale green, and always danced with the same man—
a man about his own height and colouring, whose
face, however, he never could properly see. They
sat out together much of the time—always in the
gallery where the shadows were deepest. The girl’s
face he saw clearly, and there was something about
her that simply lifted him bodily out of himself and
sent strange thrills of delight coursing over him like
shocks of electricity. Several times their eyes met,
and when this happened he could not tear his glance
away. She fascinated him, and all the forces in his
being merged into asingle desire to be with her, to
dance with her, speak with her, and to know her
name. Especially he wondered who the man was
she so favoured ; he reminded him so oddly of him-
self. Noone knows precisely what he himself looks
like, but this tall dark figure, whose face he never
could contrive to see, started the strange thought in
him that it was his own double.

In vain he sought to compass an introduction to
this girl. No one seemed to know her. Her dress,
her hair, and a certain wondrous slim grace made
him think of a young tree waving in the wind; of
ivy leaves ; of something that belonged to the life of
the woods rather than to ordinary humanity. She
possessed him, filling his thoughts with wild wood-
land dreams, Once, too, he was certain when their

THE DANCE OF DEATH 261

eyes met that she smiled at him, and the call was so
well-nigh irresistible that he almost dropped his
partner’s arm to run after her.

But it seemed impossible to obtain an introduction
from any one.

“Do you know who that girl is over there?” he
asked one of his partners while sitting out a square
dance, half exhausted with his exertions; “the one
up there in the gallery ?”

“Tn pink ?”

‘‘No, the one in green, I mean.”

“Oh, next the wall-flower lady in red!”

“In the gallery, not under it,’ he explained
impatiently.

“T can’t see up there. It’s so dark,” returned the
girl after a careful survey through glasses. I don’t
think I see any one at all.”

“Tt is rather dark,” he remarked.

“Why? Do you know who she is!” she asked
foolishly.

He did not like to insist. Itseemed so rude to his
partner. But this sort of thing happened once or
twice. Evidently no one knew this girl in green, or
else he described her so inaccurately that the people
he asked looked at some one else instead.

“In that green sort of ivy-looking dress,” he tried
another.

“With the rose in her hair and the red nose? Or
the one sitting out?”

After that he gave it up finally. His partners
seemed to sniff a little when he asked. Evidently
la désirée was not a popular maiden. Soon after,

252 THE DANCE OF DEATH

too, she disappeared and he lost sight of her. Yet
the thought that she might have gone home made
his heart sink into a sort of horrible blackness,

He lingered on much later than he intended in the
hope of getting an introduction, but at last, when he
had filled all his engagements, or nearly all, he
made up his mind to slip out and go home. It was
already late, and he had to be in the office—that
hateful office—punctually at nine o’clock. He felt
tired, awfully tired, more so than ever before at a
dance. It was, of course, his weak heart. He still
dawdled a little while, however, hoping for another
glimpse of the sylph in green, hungering for a last
look that he could carry home with him and perhaps
mingle with his dreams. The mere thought of her
filled him with pain and joy, and a sort of rarefied
delight he had never known before. But he could
not wait for ever, and it was already close upon two
o’clock in the morning. His rooms were only a
short distance down the street; he would lighta
cigarette and stroll home. No; he had forgotten
for a moment ; without a cigarette: the doctor had
been very stern on that point.

He was in the act of turning his back on the whirl
of dancing figures, when the flags at the far end of
the room parted for an instant in the moving air,
and his eye rested upon the gallery just visible
among the shadows.

A great pain ran swiftly through his heart as he
looked.

There were only two figures seated there : the tall
dark man, who was his double. and the ivy girl in

THE DANCE OF DEATH 253

green. She was looking straight at him down the
length of the room, and even at that distance he
could see that she smiled.

He stopped short. The flags waved back again
and hid the picture, but on the instant he made up
his mind toact. There, amongall this dreary crowd
of dancing dolls, was some one he really wanted to
know, to speak with, to touch—some one who drew
him beyond all he had ever known, and made his
soul cry aloud. The room was filled with automatic
lay-figures, but here was some one alive. He must
know her. It was impossible to go home without
speech, utterly impossible.

A fresh stab of pain, worse than the first, gave him
momentary pause. He leant against the wall for an
instant just under the clock, where the hands
pointed to two, waiting for the swooning blackness
to go. Then he passed on, disregarding it utterly;
It supplied him, in truth, with the extra little
impetus he needed to set the will into vigorous
action, for it reminded him forcibly of what might
happen. His time might be short ; he had known
few enough of the good things of life; he would
seize what he could. He had no introduction, but
—to the devil with the conventions. The risk was
nothing. To meet her eyes at close quarters, to hear
her voice, to know something of the perfume of
that hair and dress—what was the risk of a snub
compared to that ?

He slid down the side of the long room, dodging
the dancers as best he could, The tall man, he noted,
had left the gallery, but the girl sat on alone. He

oan THE DANCE OF DEATH

made his way quickly up the wooden steps, light as
air, trembling with anticipation. His heart beat
like a quick padded hammer, and the blood played
a tambourine in his ears. It was odd he did not
meet the tall man on the stairs, but doubtless there
was another exit from the gallery that he had not
observed. He topped the stairs and turned the
corner. By Jove, she was still there, a few feet in
front of him, sitting with her arms upon the railing,
peering down upon the dancers below. His eyes
swam for a moment, and something clutched at the
very roots of his being.

But he did not hesitate. He went up quite close
past the empty seats, meaning to ask naturally and
simply if he might beg for the pleasure of a dance.
Then, when he was within afew feet of her side, the
girl suddenly turned and faced him, and the words
died away on his lips. They seemed absolutely
foolish and inadequate.

“Yes, I am ready,” she said quietly, looking
straight into his eyes; “but what a long time you
were in coming. Was it such a great effort to
leave?”

The form of the question struck him as odd, but
he was too happy to pause. He became transfigured
with joy. The sound of her voice instantly drowned
all the clatter of the ball-room, and seemed to him
the only thing in the whole world. It did not break
on the consonants like most human speech. It
flowed smoothly; it was the sound of wind among
branches, of water running over pebbles. It swept
into him and caught him away, so that for a moment

THE DANCE OF DEATH 255

he saw his beloved woods and hills and seas, The
stars were somewhere in it too and the murmur of
the plains.

By the gods! Here was a girl he could speak
with in the words of silence; she stretched every
_ String in his soul and then played on them. His
spirit expanded with life and happiness. She would
listen gladly to all that concerned him. To her he
could talk openly about his poor broken heart, for
she would sympathise. Indeed, it was all he could
do to prevent himself running forward at once with
his arms outstretched to take her. There was a
perfume of earth and woods about her.

“Oh, I am so awfully glad——” he began lamely,
his eyes on her face. Then, remembering something
of earthly manners, he added ;

“My name—er—is——”

Something unusual—something indescribable—in
her gesture stopped him. She had moved to give
him space at her side.

“Your name!” she laughed, drawing her green
skirts with a soft rustle like leaves along the bench
to make room; “but you need no name now, you
know !”

Oh, the wonder of it! She understood him. He
sat down with a feeling that he had been flying ina
free wind and was resting among the tops of trees,
The room faded out temporarily.

“ But my name, if you like to know, is Issidy,” she
said, still smiling.

‘Miss Issidy,” he stammered, making another
attempt at the forms of worldly politeness,

256 THE DANCE OF DEATH

“Not Miss Issidy,” she laughed aloud merrily. It
surely was the sound of wind in poplars. “ Issidy is
my first name ; so if you call me anything, you must
call me that.”

The name was pure music in his ears, but though
he blundered about in his memory to find his own,
it had utterly vanished ; for the life of him he could
not recollect what his friends called him. He stared
a moment, vaguely wondering, almost beside him-
self with delight. No other girls he had known—ye
heavens above! there were no longer any other girls!
He had never known any other girl than this one.
Here was his universe, framed in a green dress,
with a voice of sea and wind, eyes like the sun, and
movements of bending grasses. All else was mere
shadow and fantasy. For the first time in his exist-
ence he was alive, and knew that he was alive.

“JT was sure you would come to me,” she was
saying. ‘You couldn’t help yourself.” Her eyes
were always on his face.

“] was afraid at first--——’

“But your thoughts,” she interrupted softly, “your
thoughts were up here with me all the time.”

“You knew that!” he cried, delighted.

“T felt them,” she replied simply. “They—you
kept me company, for I have been alone here all the
evening. I know no one else here—yet.”

Her words amazed him. He was just going to ask
who the tall dark man was, when he saw that she
was rising to her feet and that she wanted to dance,

“But my heart——” he stammered.

“It won't hurt your poor heart to dance with me,

THE DANCE OF DEATH 257

”

you know,” she laughed. “You may trust me, I
shall know how to take care of it.”

Browne felt simply ecstatic ; it was too wonderful
to betrue; it was impossible—this meeting in London,
at an ordinary dull dance, in the twentieth century.
He would wake up presently from a dream of silver
and gold. Yet he felt even then that she was draw-
ing his arm about her waist for the dance, and with
that first magical touch he almost lost consciousness
and passed with her into a state of pure spirit.

It puzzled him for a moment how they reached
the floor so quickly and found themselves among
the whirling couples. He had no recollection of
coming down the stairs. But meanwhile he was
dancing on wings, and the girl in green beside him
seemed to fly too, and as he pressed her to his heart
he found it impossible to think of anything else
in the world but that—that and his astounding
happiness.

And the music was within them, rather than with-
out; indeed they seemed to make their own music
out of their swift whirling movements, for it never
ceased and he never grewtired. His heart had ceased
to pain him, Other curious things happened, too, but
he hardly noticed them; or, rather, they no longer
seemed strange. In that crowded ball-room they
never once touched other people. His partner
required no steering. She made nosound. Then
suddenly he realised that his own feet made no
sound either. They skimmed the floor with noise-
less feet like spiritsdancing. No one else appeared
to take the least notice of them. Most of the faces

R

258 THE DANCE OF DEATH

seemed, indeed, strange to him now, as though he
had not seen them before, but once or twice he could
have sworn that he passed couples who were dancing
almost as happily and lightly as themselves, couples
he had known in past years, couples who were
dead.

Gradually the room emptied of its original comers,
and others filled their places, silently, with airy
graceful movements and happy faces, till the whole
floor at length was covered with the soundless feet
and whirling forms of those who had already left
the world. And, as the artificial light faded away,
there came in its place a soft white light that filled
the room with beauty and made all the faces
look radiant. And, once, as they skimmed past a
mirror, he saw that the girl beside him was not
there—that he seemed to be dancing alone, clasping
no one; yet when he glanced down, there was her
magical face at his shoulder and he felt her little
form pressing up against him.

Such dancing, too, he had never even dreamed
about, for it was like swinging with the tree-tops in
the winds:

Then they danced farther out, ever swifter and
swifter, past the shadows beneath the gallery, under
the motionless hanging flags—and out into the
night. The walls were behind them. They were
off their feet and the wind was in their hair. They
were rising, rising, rising towards the stars.

He felt the cool air of the open sky on his cheeks,
and when he looked down, as they cleared the
summit of the dark-lying hills, he saw that Issidy

THE DANCE OF DEATH 259

had melted away into himself and they had become
one being. And he knew then that his heart would
never pain him again on earth, or cause him to fear
for any of his beloved dreams.

& € * ®

But the manager of the “hateful office” only
knew two days later why Browne had not turned up
to his desk, nor sent any word to explain his absence.
He read it in the paper—how he had dropped down
dead at a dance, suddenly stricken by heart disease.
It happened just before two o’clock in the morning.

“Well,” thought the manager, “he’s no loss to us
anyhow. He had no real business instincts. Smith
will do his work much better—and for less money
too.”

THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS

I

THE image of Teufelsdréckh, sitting in his watch-
tower “alone with the stars,” leaped into my mind
the moment I saw him ; and the curious expression
of his eyes proclaimed at once that here was a being
who allowed the world of small effects to pass him
by, while he himself dwelt among the eternal veri-
ties. It was only necessary to catch a glimpse of
the bent grey figure, so slight yet so tremendous, to
realise that he carried staff and wallet, and was
travelling alone in a spiritual region, uncharted, and
full of wonder, difficulty, and fearful joy.

The inner eye perceived this quite as clearly as
the outer was aware of his Hebraic ancestry; but
along what winding rivers, through what haunted
woods, by the shores of what singing seas he pressed
forward towards the mountains of his goal, no one
could guess from a mere inspection of that wonderful
old face.

To have stumbled upon such a figure in the
casual way I did seemed incredible to me even at
the time, yet I at once caught something of the
uplifting airs that followed this inhabitant of a finer
world, and I spent days—and considered them well

262 THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS

spent—trying to get into conversation with him, so
that I might know something more than the thin
disguise of his holding a reader’s ticket for the
Museum Library.

To reach the stage of intimacy where actual
speech is a hindrance to close understanding, one
need not in some cases have spoken at all . thus by
merely setting my mind,iand above all, my imagina-
tion, into tune with his, and by steeping myself so
much in his atmosphere that I absorbed and then
gave back to him with my own stamp the forces he
exhaled, it was at length possible to persuade those
vast-seeing eyes to turn in my direction; and our
glances having once met, I simply rose when he
rose, and followed him out of the little smoky
restaurant so closely up the street that our clothes
brushed, and I thought I could even catch the
sound of his breathing.

Whether, having already weighed me, he accepted
the office, or whether he was grateful for the arm to
lean upon, with his many years’ burden, I do not
know; but the sympathy between us was such that,
without a single word, we walked up that foggy
London street to the door of his lodging in Blooms-
bury, while I noticed that at the touch of his arm
the noise of the town seemed to turn into deep sing-
ing, and even the hurrying passers-by seemed bent
upon noble purposes ; and though he barely reached
to my shoulder, and his grey beard almost touched
my glove as I bent my arm to hold his own, there
was something immense about his figure that sent
him with towering stature above me and filled my

THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS 263

thoughts with enchanting dreams of grandeur and
high beauty.

But it was only when the door had closed on him
with a little rush of wind, and I was walking home
alone, that I fully realised the shock of my return
to earth; and on reaching my own rooms I shook
with laughter to think I had walked a mile and a
half with a complete stranger without uttering a
single syllable. Then the laughter suddenly hushed
as I caught my face in the glass with the expression
of the soul still lingering about the eyes and fore-
head, and for a brief moment my heart leaped to a
sort of noble fever in the blood, leaving me with
the smart of the soul’s wings stirring beneath the
body’s crushing weight. And when it passed I
found myself dwelling upon the only words he had
spoken when I left him at the door:

“Tam the Old Man of Visions, and I am at your
service.”

I think he never had a name—at least, it never
passed his lips, and perhaps lay buried with so much
else of the past that he clearly deemed unimportant.
To me, at any rate, he became simply the Old Man
of Visions, and to the little waiting-maid and the
old landlady he was known simply as “ Mister ”—
Mister, neither more nor less, The impenetrable
veil that hung over his past never lifted for any vital
revelations of his personal history, though he evi-
dently knew all countries of the world, and had
absorbed into his heart and brain the experience of all
possible types of human nature ; and there was an air
about him not so much of “ Ask me no questions,”

264 THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS

as “Do not ask me, for I cannot answer you in
words.”

He could satisfy, but not in mere language ; he
would reveal, but by the wonderful words of silence
only; for he was the Old Man of Visions, and
visions need no words, being swift and of the
spirit.

Moreover,the landlady—poor, dusty, faded woman
—the landlady stood in awe, and disliked being
probed for information in a passage-way down
which he might any moment tread, for she could
only tell me, “He just came in one night, years
ago, and he’s been here ever since!” And more
than that I never knew. “Just came in—one night
—years ago.” This adequately explained him, for
where he came from, or was journeying fo, was
something quite beyond the scope of ordinary
limited language. 2

I pictured him suddenly turning aside from the
stream of unimportant events, quietly stepping out
of the world of straining, fighting, and shouting, and
moving to take his rightful place among the forces
of the still, spiritual region where he belonged
by virtue of long pain and difficult attainment.
For he was unconnected with any conceivable net-
work of relations, friends, or family, and his terrible
aloofness could not be disturbed by any one unless
with his permission and by his express wish. Nor
could he be imagined as “ belonging” to any definite
set of souls. He was apart from the world—and
above it.

But it was only when I began to creep a little

THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS 265

nearer to him, and our strange, silent intimacy
passed from mental to spiritual, that I began really
to understand more of this wonderful Old Man of
Visions.

Steeped in the tragedy, and convulsed with
laughter at the comedy, of life, he yet lived there in
his high attic wrapped in silence as in a golden
cloud; and so seldom did he actually speak to me
that each time the sound of his voice, that had some-
thing elemental in it—something of winds and
waters—thrilled me with the power of the first time.
He lived, like Teufelsdréckh, “ alone with the stars,”
and it seemed impossible, more and more, to link
him on anywhere into practical dealings with ordi-
nary men and women. Life somehow seemed to
pass below him. Yet the small, selfish spirit of the
recluse was far from him, and he was tenderly and
deeply responsive to pain and suffering, and more
particularly to genuine yearning for the far things
of beauty. The unsatisfied longings of others could
move him at once to tears. ™

“My relations with men are perfect,” he said one
night as we neared his dwelling. “I give them all
sympathy out of my stores of knowledge and ex-
perience, and they give to me what kindness I need.
My outer shell lies within impenetrable solitude,
for only so can my inner life move freely along the
paths and terraces that are thronged with the beings
to whom I belong.” And when I asked him how he
maintained such deep sympathy with humanity, and
had yet absolved himself apparently from action as
from speech, he stopped against an area railing and

266 THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS

turned his great eyes on to my face, as though their
fires could communicate his thought without the
husk of words :

‘«T have peered too profoundly into life and beyond
it,” he murmured, “to wish to express in language
what I know. Action is not for all, always; and I
am in touch with the cisterns of thought that lie
behind action. I ponder the mysteries. What I
may solve is not lost for lack either of speech or
action, for the true mystic is ever the true man of
action, and my thought will reach others as soon as
they are ready for it in the same way that it reached
you. All who strongly yearn must, sooner or later,
find me and be comforted.”

His eyes shifted from my face towards the stars,
softly shining above the dark Museum roof, and a
moment later he had disappeared into the hall-way
of his house.

“ An old poet who has strayed afield and lost his
way,’ I mused ; but through the door where he had
just vanished the words came back to me as from a
great distance: “A priest, rather, who has begun to
find his way.”

For a space I stood, pondering on his face and
words :—that mercilessly intelligent look of ,the
Hebrew woven in with the expression of the sadness
of a whole race, yet touched with the glory of the
spirit; and his utterance—that he had passed through
all the traditions and no longer needed a formal,
limited creed to hold to. I forget how I reached
my own door several miles away, but it seemed to
me that I flew.

THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS 267

In this way, and by unregistered degrees, we came
to know each other better, and he accepted me and
took me into his life. Always wrapped in the great
calm of his delightful silence, he taught me more, and
told me more, than could ever lie within the con-
fines of mere words; and in moments of need, no
matter when or where, I always knew exactly how
to find him, reaching him in a few seconds by some
swift way that disdained the means of ordinary
locomotion.

Then at last one day he gave me the key of his
house, And the first time I found my way into
his eyry, and realised that it was a haven I could
always fly to when the yearnings of the heart and
soul struggled vainly for recompense, the full mean-
ing and importance of the Old Man of Visions
became finally clear to me.

il

THE room, high up creaky, darkened stairs in the
ancient house, was bare and fireless, looking through
a single patched window across a tumbled sea of
roofs and chimneys; yet there was that in it which
instantly proclaimed it a little holy place out of
the world, a temple in which some one with
spiritual vitality had worshipped, prayed, wept,
and sung.

It was dusty and unswept, yet it was utterly
unsoiled,; and the Old Man of Visions who lived
there, for all his shabby and stained garments, his
uncombed beard and broken shoes, stood within
its door revealed in his real self, moving in a
sort of divine whiteness, iridescent, shining. And
here, in this attic (lampless and unswept), high
up under the old roofs of Bloomsbury, the win-
dow scarred with rain and the corners dropping
cobwebs, I heard his silver whisper issue from the
shadows: .

“Here you may satisfy your soul’s desire and
may commune with the Invisibles ; only, to find

the Invisibles, you must first be able to lose your-
self,”

THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS 269

Ah ! through that stained window-pane, the sight
leaping at a single bound from black roofs up to
the stars, what pictures, dreams, and visions the
Old Man has summoned to my eyes! Distances,
measureless and impossible hitherto, became easy,
and from the oppression of dead bricks and the
market-place he transported me in a moment to the
slopes of the Mountains of Dream; leading me to
little places near the summits where the pines grew
thinly and the stars were visible through their
branches, fading into the rose of dawn ; where the
winds tasted of the desert, and the voices of the
wilderness fled upward with a sound of wings and
falling streams. At his word houses melted away,
and the green waves of all the seas flowed into their
places; forests waved themselves into the coast-
line of dull streets ; and the power of the old earth,
with all her smells and flowers and wild life, thrilled
down among the dead roofs and caught me away
into freedom among the sunshine of meadows and
the music of sweet pipings. And with the divine
deliverance came the crying of sea-gulls, the glimmer
of reedy tarns, the whispering of wind among
grasses, and the healing scorch of a real sun upon
the skin.

And poetry such as was never known or heard
before clothed all he uttered, yet even then took no
form in actual words, for it was of the substance of
aspiration and yearning, voicing adequately all the
busy, high-born dreams that haunt the soul yet never
live in the utteredline. He breathed it about him

270 THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS

in the air so that it filled my being. It was part of
him—beyond words; and it. sang my own longings,
and sang them perfectly so that I was satisfied ;
for my own mood never failed to touch him in-
stantly and to waken the right response. In its
essence it was spiritual—the mystic poetry of heaven;
still, the love of humanity informed it, for star-fire
and heart’s blood were about equally mingled there,
while the mystery of unattainable beauty moved
through it like a white flame.

With other dreams and longings, too, it was the
same; and all the most beautiful ideas that ever
haunted a soul undowered with expression here
floated with satisfied eyes and smiling lips before
one—floated in silence, unencumbered, unlimited,
unrestrained by words.

In this dim room, never made ugly by artificial
light, but always shadowy in a kind of gentle dusk,
the Old Man of Visions had only to lead me to the
window to bring peace. Music, that rendered the
soul fluid, as it poured across the old roofs into the
room, was summoned by him at need; and when
one’s wings beat sometimes against the prison walls
and the yearning for escape oppressed the heart, I
have heard the little room rush and fill with the
sound of trees, wind among grasses, whispering
branches, and lapping waters. The very odours of
space and mountain-side came too, and the looming
of noble hills seemed visible overhead against the
stars, as though the ceiling had suddenly become
transparent,

THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS 271

For the Old Man of{Visions had the power of
instantly satisfying an ideal when once that ideal
created a yearning that could tear and burn its
way out with sufficient force to set the will
a-moving

II!

But as the time passed and I came to depend more
and more upon the intimacy with my strange old
friend, new light fell upon the nature and possi-
bilities of our connection. I discovered, for instance,
that though I held the key to his dwelling, and was
familiar with the way, he was nevertheless not
always available. Two things, in different fashion,
rendered him inaccessible, or mute; and, for the
first, I gradually learned that when life was pros-
perous, and the body singing loud, I could not find
my way to his house. No amount of wandering,
calculation, or persevering effort enabled me even
to findthe street again. With any burst of worldly
success, however fleeting, the Old Man of Visions
somehow slipped away into remote shadows and
became unreal and misty. A merely passing desire
to be with him, to seek his inspiration by a glimpse
through that magic window-pane, resulted only in
vain and tiresome pacing to and fro along ugly
streets that produced weariness and depression ; and
after these periods it became, I noticed, less and less
easy to discover the house, to fit the key in the door,
or, having gained access to the temple, to realise
the visions I thought I craved for,

THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS 273

Often, in this way, have I searched in vain for
days, but only succeeded in losing myself in the
murky purlieus of a quite strange Bloomsbury ;
stopping outside numberless counterfeit doors, and
struggling vainly with locks that knew nothing of
my little shining key.

But, on the other hand, pain, loneliness, sorrow
—the merest whisper of spiritual affliction—and, lo,
in a single moment the difficult geography became
plain, and without hesitation, when I was unhappy
or distressed, I found the way to his house as by a
bird’s instinctive flight, and the key slipped into the
lock as though it loved it and was returning home.

The other cause to render him inaccessible,
though not so determined—since it never concealed
the way to the house—was even more distressing,
for it depended wholly on myself; and I came to
know how the least ugly action, involving a depre-
ciation of ideals, so confused the mind that, when I
got into the house, with difficulty, and found him
in the little room after much searching, he was able
to do or say scarcely anything at all for me. The
mirror facing the door then gave back, I saw, no
proper reflection of his person, but only a faded
and wavering shadow with dim eyes and stooping,
indistinct outline, and I even fancied I could see
the pattern of the wall and shape of the furniture
through his body, as though he had grown semi-
transparent.

“You must not expect yearnings to weigh,’ came
his whisper, like wind far overhead, “unless you
lend to them your own substance; and your own

s

274 THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS

substance you cannot both keep and lend. If you
would know the Invisibles, forget yourself.”

And later, as the years slipped away one after
another into the mists, and the frontier between the
real and the unreal began to shift amazingly with
his teachings, it became more and more clear to me
that he belonged to a permanent region that, with
all the changes in the world’s history, has itself
never altered in any essential particular. This
immemorial Old Man of Visions, as I grew to think
of him, had existed always ; he was old as the sea
and coeval with the stars ; and he dwelt beyond time
and space, reaching out a hand to all those who,
weary of the shadows and illusions of practical life,
really call to him with their heart of hearts. To
me, indeed, the touch of sorrow was always near
enough to prevent his becoming often inaccessible,
and after a while even his voice became so living.
that I sometimes heard it calling to me in the street
and in the fields.

Oh, wonderful Old Man of Visions! Happy the
days of disaster, since they taught me how to know
you, the Unraveller of. Problems, the Destroyer of
Doubts, who bore me ever away with soft flight
down the long, long vistas of the heart and soul !

And his loneliness in that temple attic under the
stars, his loneliness, too, had a meaning I did not
fail to understand later, and why he was always
available for me and seemed to belong to no other.

“To every one who finds me,” he said, with the
strange smile that wrapped his whole being and not
his face alone, “to every one I am the same, and

THE OLD MAN OF VISIONS 27s

yet different. I am not really ever alone. The
whole world, nay ”—his voice rose to a singing cry
—‘“the whole universe lies in this room, or just
beyond that window-pane; for here past and future
meet and all real dreams find completeness. But
remember,” he added—and there was a sound as of
soft wind and rain in the room with his voice—“ no
true dream can ever be shared, and should you seek
to explain me to another you must lose me beyond
recall. You have never asked my name, nor must
you ever tell it. Each must find me in his own
way.”

Yet one day, for all my knowledge and _ his
warnings, I felt so sure of my intimacy with this
immemorial being, that I spoke of him to a friend
who was, I had thought, so much a part of myself
that it seemed no betrayal. And my friend, who
went to search and found nothing, returned with
the fool’s laughter on his face, and swore that no
street or number existed, for he had looked in vain,
and had repeatedly asked the way.

And, from that day to this, the Old Man of Visions
has neither called to me nor let his place be found ;
the streets are strange and empty, and I have even
lost the little shining key.

ol es Te
Bias ide Bats

ry Peed
Rr anes. ist

ee eee

MAY DAY EVE
I
IT was in the spring when I at last found time from
the hospital work to visit my friend, the old folk-
lorist, in his country isolation, and I rather chuckled
to myself, because in my bag I was taking down a
book that utterly refuted all his tiresome pet theories
of magic and the powers of the soul.

These theories were many and various, and had
often troubled me. In the first place, I scorned them
for professional reasons, and, in the second, because
I had never been able to argue quite well enough to
convince or to shake his faith in even the smallest
details, and any scientific knowledge I brought to
bear only fed him with confirmatory data. To find
such a book, therefore, and to know that it was
safely in my bag, wrapped up in brown paper
and addressed to him, was a deep and satisfactory
joy, and I speculated a good deal during the journey
how he would deal with the overwhelming argu-
ments it contained against the existence of any
important region outside the world of sensory
perceptions.

‘Speculative, too, I was whether his visionary
habits and absorbing experiments would permit

248 MAY DAY EVE

him to remember my arrival at all, and I was
accordingly relieved to hear from the solitary
porter that the “ professor” had sent a “ veeckle”
to meet me, and that I was thus free to send my
bag and walk the four miles to the house across
the hills. ;

It was a calm, windless evening, just after sunset,
the air warm and scented, and delightfully still.
The train, already sinking into distance, carried away
with it the noise of crowds and cities and the last
suggestions of the stressful life behind me, and
from the little station on the moorland I stepped
at once into the world of silent, growing things,
tinkling sheep-bells, shepherds, and wild, desolate
spaces. e

My path lay diagonally across the turfy hills. It
slanted a mile or so to the summit, wandered vaguely
another two miles among gorse-bushes along the
crest, passed Tom Bassett’s cottage by the pines, and
then dropped sharply down on the other side through
rather thin woods to the ancient house where the old
folk-lorist lived and dreamed himself into his im-
possible world of theory and fantasy. I fell to think-
ing busily about him during the first part of the
ascent, and convinced myself, as usual, that, but
for his generosity to the poor, and his benign
aspect, the peasantry must undoubtedly have
regarded him as a wizard who speculated in
souls and had dark dealings with the world of
faery.

The path I knew tolerably well. I had already
walked it once before—a winter's day some years

MAY DAY EVE 29

ago—and from the cottage onwards felt sure of
my way ; but for the first mile or so there were so
many cross cattle-tracks, and the light had become
so dim, that I felt it wise to inquire more particu-
larly. And this I was fortunately able to do of a
man who with astonishing suddenness rose from
the grass where he had been lying behind a clump
of bushes, and passed a few yards in front of
me at a high pace downhill towards the darkening
valley.

He was in such a state of hurry that I called out
loudly to him, fearing to be too late, but on hearing
my voice he turned sharply, and seemed to arrive
almost at once beside me. In a single instant he
was standing there, quite close, looking, with a smile
and a certain expression of curiosity, I thought, into
my face. I remember thinking that his features,
pale and wholly untanned, were rather wonderful
for a countryman, and that the eyes were those of a
foreigner ; his great swiftness, too, gave me a dis-
tinct sensation—something almost of a start—though
I knew my vision was at fault at the best of times,
and of course especially so in the deceptive twilight
of the open hillside.

Moreover—as the way often is with such instruc-
tions—the words did not stay in my mind very
clearly after he had uttered them, and the rapid,
panther-like movements of the man as he quickly
vanished down the hill again left me with little
more than a sweeping gesture indicating the line
I was to follow. No doubt his sudden rising
from behind the gorse-bush, his curious swiftness,

280 MAY DAY EVE

and the way he peered into my face, and even.
tcuched me on the shoulder, all combined to
distract my attention somewhat from the actual
words he used ; and the fact that I was travelling
at a wrong angle, and should have come out a
mile too far to the right, helped to complete
my feeling that his gesture, pointing the way, was
sufficient.

On the crest of the ridge, panting a little with the
unwonted exertion, I lay down to rest a moment on
the grass beside a flaming yellow gorse-bush. There
was still a good hour before I should be looked for
at the house; the grass was very soft, the peace and
silence soothing. I lingered, and lit a cigarette.
And it was just then, I think, that my subconscious
memory gave back the words, the actual words, the
man had spoken, and the heavy significance of the
personal pronoun, as he had emphasised it in his
odd foreign voice, touched me with a sense of vague
amusement: ‘The safest way for you now,” he had
said, as though I was so obviously a townsman and
might be in danger on the lonely hills after dark.
And the quick way he had reached my side, and
then slipped off again like a shadow down the steep
slope, completed a definite little picture in my mind.
Then other thoughts and memories rose up and
formed a series of pictures, following each other in
rapid succession, and forming a chain of reflec-
tions undirected by the will and without pur-
pose or meaning. I fell, that is, into a pleasant
reverie.

Below me, and infinitely far away, it seemed, the

MAY DAY EVE 28t

valley lay silent under a veil of blue evening haze,
the lower end losing itself among darkening hills
whose peaks rose here and there like giant plumes
that would surely nod their great heads and call to
one another once the final shadows were down.
The village lay, a misty patch, in which lights
already twinkled. A sound of rooks faintly cawing, of
sea-gulls crying far up in the sky, and of dogs barking
at a great distance rose up out of the general
murmur of evening voices, Odours of farm and
field and open spaces stole to my nostrils, and
everything contributed to the feeling that I lay on the
top of the world, nothing between me and the stars,
and that all the huge, free things of the earth—hills,
valleys, woods, and sloping fields—lay breathing
deeply about me.

A few sea-gulls—in daytime hereabouts they fill
the air—still circled and wheeled within range of
sight, uttering from time to time sharp, petulant
cries; and far in the distance there was just
visible a shadowy line that showed where the sea
lay.

Then, as I lay gazing dreamily into this still
pool of shadows at my feet, something rose up,
something sheet-like, vast, imponderable, off the
whole surface of the mapped-out country, moved
with incredible swiftness down the valley, and in a
single instant climbed the hill where I lay and swept
by me, yet without hurry, and in a sense without
speed. Veils in this way rose one after another,
filling the cups between the hills, shrouding alike
fields, village, and hillside as they passed, and

282 MAY DAY EVE

settled down somewhere into the gloom behind
me over the ridge, or slipped off like vapour into
the sky.

Whether it was actually mist rising from the
surface of the fast-cooling ground, or merely the
earth giving up her heat to the night, I could not
determine. The coming of darkness is ever a series
of mysteries. I only know that this indescribable
vast stirring of the landscape seemed to me as
though the earth were unfolding immense sable
wings from her sides, and lifting them for silent,
gigantic strokes so that she might fly more swiftly
from the sun into the night. The darkness, at any
rate, did drop down over everything very soon
afterwards, and I rose up hastily to follow my path-
way, realising with a degree of wonder strangely
new to me the magic of twilight, the blue open
depths into the valley below, and the pale yellow
heights of the watery sky above.

I walked rapidly, a sense of chilliness about me,
and soon lost sight of the valley altogether as I got
upon the ridge proper of these lonely and desolate
hills.

It could not have been more than fifteen minutes
that I lay there in reverie, yet the weather, I at
once noticed, had changed very abruptly, for mist
was seething here and there about me, rising some-
where from smaller valleys in the hills beyond, and
obscuring the path, while overhead there was plainly
a sound of wind tearing past, far up, with a sound
of high shouting. A moment before it had been
the stillness of a warm spring night, yet now every-

MAY DAY EVE 283

thing had changed ; wet mist coated me, raindrops
smartly stung my face, and a gusty wind, descending
out of cool heights, began to strike and buffet me,
so that I buttoned my coat and pressed my hat more
firmly upon my head.

The change was really this—and it came to me
for the first time in my life with the power of a real
conviction—that everything about me seemed to
have become suddenly alive.

It came oddly upon me—prosaic, matter-of-fact,
materialistic doctor that I was—this realisation that
the world about me had somehow stirred into life ;
oddly, I say, because Nature to me had always been
merely a more or less definite arrangement of
measurement, weight, and colour, and this new
presentation of it was utterly foreign to my tem-
perament. A valley to me was always a valley; a
hill, merely a hill; a field, so many acres of flat
surface, grass or ploughed, drained well or drained
ill; whereas now, with startling vividness, came the
strange, haunting idea that after all they could be
something more than valley, hill, and field: that
what I had hitherto perceived by these names were
only the veils of something that lay concealed
within, something alive. In a word, that the poetic
sense I had always rather sneered at in others, or
explained away with some shallow physiological
label, had apparently suddenly opened up in myself
without any obvious Cause.

And, the more I puzzled over it, the more I began
to realise that its genesis dated from those few
minutes of reverie lying under the gorse-bush

284 MAY DAY EVE

(reverie, a thing I had never before in all my life
indulged in !), or, now that I came to reflect more
accurately, from my brief interview with that wild-
eyed, swift-moving, shadowy man of whom I had
first inquired the way.

I recalled my singular fancy that veils were lifting
off the surface of the hills and fields, and a tremor
of excitement accompanied the memory. Such a
thing had never before been possible to my practical
intelligence, and it made me feel suspicious—sus-
picious about myself. I stood still a moment—I
looked about me into the gathering mist, above
me to the vanishing stars, below me to the hidden
valley, and then sent an urgent summons to my
individuality, as I had always known it, to arrest
and chase these undesirable fancies.

But I called in vain. No answer came. Anxiously,
hurriedly, confusedly too, I searched for my normal
self, but could not find it; and this failure to respond
induced in me a sense of uneasiness that touched
very nearly upon the borders of alarm.

I pushed on faster and faster along the turfy
track among the gorse-bushes with a dread that I
might lose the way altogether, and a sudden desire
to reach home as soon asmight be. Then, without
warning, I emerged unexpectedly into clear air
again, and the vapour swept past me in a rushing
wall and rose into the sky. Anew I saw the lights
of the village behind me in the depths, here and
there a line of smoke rising against the pale yellow
sky, and stars overhead peering down through

MAY DAY EVE 285

thin wispy clouds that stretched their wind-signs
across the night.

After all, it had been nothing but a stray bit of
sea-fog driving up from the coast, for the other
side of the hills, I remembered, dipped their chalk
cliffs straight into the sea, and strange lost winds
must often come a-wandering this way with the
sharp changes of temperature about sunset. None
the less, it was disconcerting to know that mist and
storm lay hiding within possible reach, and I walked
on smartly for a sight of Tom Bassett’s cottage and
the lights of the Manor House in the valley a short
mile beyond.

The clearing of the air, however, lasted but a very
brief while, and vapour was soon rising about me
as before, hiding the path and making bushes and
stone walls look like running shadows. It came,
driven apparently by little independent winds up
the many side gullies, and it was very cold, touching
my skin like a wet sheet. Curious great shapes,
too, it assumed as the wind worked to and fro
through it: forms of men and animals: grotesque,
giant outlines ; ever shifting and running along the
ground with silent feet, or leaping into the air with
sharp cries as the gusts twisted them inwardly and
lent them voice. More and more I pushed my
pace, and more and more darkness and vapour
obliterated the landscape. The going was not
otherwise difficult, and here and there cowslips
glimmered in patches of dancing yellow, while the
_ springy turf made it easy to keep up speed; yet in

286 MAY DAY EVE

the gloom I frequently tripped and plunged into
prickly gorse near the ground, so that from shin to
knee was soon a-tingle with sharp pain. Odd puffs
and spits of rain stung my face, and the periods of
utter stillness were always followed by little shouting
gusts of wind, each time from a new direction.
Troubled is perhaps too strong a word, but flustered
I certainly was; and though I recognised that it
was due to my being in an environment so remote
from the town life I was accustomed to, I found
it impossible to stifle altogether the feeling of
malaise that had crept into my heart, and I looked
about with increasing eagerness for the lighted
windows of Bassett’s cottage.

More and more, little pin-pricks of distress and
confusion accumulated, adding to my realisation of
being away from streets and shop-windows, and
things I could classify and deal with. The mist, too,
distorted as well as concealed, played tricks with
sounds as well as with sights. And, once or twice,
when I stumbled upon some crouching sheep, they
got up without the customary alarm and hurry of
sheep, and moved off slowly into the darkness, but
in such a singular way that I could almost have
sworn they were not sheep at all, but human beings
crawling on all-fours, looking back and grimacing at
me over their shoulders as they went. On these
occasions—for there were more than one—I never
could get close enough to feel their woolly wet
backs, as I should have liked to do; and the sound
of their tinkling bells came faintly through the mist,
sometimes from one direction, sometimes from

MAY DAY EVE 287:

another, sometimes all round me as though a whole
flock surrounded me; and I found it impossible to
analyse or explain the idea I received that they
were not sheep-bells at all, but something quite
different.

But mist and darkness, and a certain confusion of
the senses caused by the excitement of an utterly
strange environment, can account for a great deal.
I pushed on quickly. The conviction that I had
strayed from the route grew, nevertheless, for occa-
sionally there was a great commotion of sea-gulls
about me, as though I had disturbed them in their
sleeping-places. The air filled with their plaintive
cries, and I heard the rushing of multitudinous
wings, sometimes very close to my head, but always
invisible owing to the mist. And once, above the
swishing of the wet wind through the gorse bushes,
I was sure I caught the faint thunder of the sea and
the distant crashing of waves rolling up some steep-
throated gully in the cliffs. I went cautiously after
this, and altered my course a little away from the
direction of the sound.

Yet, increasingly all the time, it came to me how
the cries of the sea-birds sounded like laughter,
and how the everlasting wind blew and drove about
me with a purpose, and how the low bushes per-
sistently took the shape of stooping people, moving
stealthily past me, and how the mist more and more
resembled huge protean figures escorting me across
the desolate hills, silently, with immense footsteps.
For the inanimate world now touched my awakened
poetic sense in a manner hitherto unguessed, and

288 MAY DAY EVE

became fraught with the pregnant messages of
a dimly concealed life. I readily understood, for
the first time, how easily a superstitious peasantry
might people their world, and how even an educated
mind might favour an atmosphere of legend. I
stumbled along, looking anxiously for the lights of
the cottage.

Suddenly, as a shape of writhing mist whirled past,
I received so direct a stroke of wind that it was pal-
pably a blow in the face. Something swept by with
a shrill cry into the darkness. It was impossible to
prevent jumping to one side and raising an arm by
way of protection, and 1 was only just quick enough
to catch a glimpse of the sea-gull as it raced past,
with suddenly altered flight, beating its powerful
wings over my head. Its white body looked enor-
mous as the mist swallowed it. At the same moment
a gust tore the hat from my head and flung the flap
of my coat across my eyes. But I was well trained
by this time, and made a quick dash after the retreat-
ing black object, only to find on overtaking it that I
held a prickly branch of gorse. The wind combed
my hair viciously. Then, out of a corner of my eye,
Isaw my hat still rolling, and grabbed swiftly at it;
but just as I closed on it, the real hat passed in front
of me, turning over in the wind like a ball, and I
instantly released my first capture to chase it. Before
it was within reach, another one shot between my
feet so that I stepped on it. The grass seemed
covered with moving hats, yet each one, when I
seized it, turned into a piece of wood, or a tiny gorse
bush, or a black rabbit hole, till my hands were

MAY DAY EVE 289

scored with prickles and running blood. In the
darkness, I reflected, all objects looked alike, as
though by general conspiracy.

I straightened up and took a long breath, mop-
ping the blood with my handkerchief. Then some-
thing tapped at my feet,and on looking down, there
was the hat within easy reach, and I stooped down
and put iton my head again. Of course, there were
a dozen ways of explaining my confusion and
stupidity, and I walked along wondering which to
select. My eyesight, for one thing—and under such
conditions why seek further ?_ It was nothing, after
all, and the dizziness was a momentary effect caused
by the effort and stooping.

But for all that, 1 shouted aloud, on the chance
that a wandering shepherd might hear me; and of
course no answer came, for it was like calling in a
padded room, and the mist suffocated my voice and
killed its resonance,

It was really very discouraging : I was cold and
wet and hungry ; my legs and clothes torn by the
gorse, my hands scratched and bleeding ; the wind
brought water to my eyes by its constant buffetings,
and my skin was numb from contact with the chill
mist. Fortunately I had matches, and after some
difficulty, by crouching under a wall, I caught a
swift glimpse of my watch, and saw that it was but
little after eight o’clock. Supper I knew was at
nine, and I was surely over half-way by this time.
But here again was another instance of the way every-
thing seemed in a conspiracy against me to appear
otherwise than ordinary, for in the gleam of the

x

290 MAY DAY EVE

match my watch-glass showed as the face of a little
old grey man, uncommonly like the folk-lorist him-
self, peering up at me with an expression of whim-
sical laughter. My own reflection it could not
possibly have been, for I am clean-shaven, and this
face looked up at me through a running tangle of
grey hair. Yet a second and a third match revealed
only the white surface with the thin black hands
moving across it.

I!

AND it was at this point, I well remember, that I
reached what was for me the true heart of the adven-
ture, the little fragment of real experience I learned
from it and took back with me to my doctor’s life
in London, and that has remained with me ever
since, and helped me to a new sympathetic insight
into the intricacies of certain curious mental cases
I had never before really understood.

For it was sufficiently obvious by now that a
curious change had been going forward in me for
some time, dating,so far as I could focus my thoughts
sufficiently to analyse, from the moment of myspeech
with that hurrying man of shadow on the hillside.
And the first deliberate manifestation of the change,
now that I looked back, was surely the awakening in
my prosaic being of the “ poetic thrill” ; my sudden
amazing appreciation of the world around me as
something alive. From that moment the change in
me had worked ahead subtly, swiftly. Yet, so
uatural had been the beginning of it, that although
it wasa radically new departure for my temperament,
I was hardly aware at first of what had actually come
about; and it was only now, after so many encoun-
ters, that I was forced at length to acknowledge it.

It came the more forcibly too, because my very

292 MAY DAY EVE

commonplace ideas of beauty had hitherto always
been associated with sunshine and crude effects ; yet
here this new revelation leaped to me out of wind and
mist and desolation ona lonely hillside, out of night,
darkness, and discomfort. New values rushed upon
me from all sides. Everything had changed, and the
very simplicity with which the new values presented
themselves proved to me how profound the change,
the readjustment, had been. In such trivial things
the evidence had come that I was not aware of it
until repetition forced my attention : the veils rising
from valley and hill; the mountain tops as person-
alities that shout or murmur in the darkness; the
crying of the sea birds and of the living, purposeful
wind; above all, the feeling that Nature about me
was instinct with a life differing from my own in
degree rather than in kind; everything, from the con- ~
spiracy of the gorse-bushes to the disappearing hat,
showed that a fundamental attitude of mind in me
had changed—and changed, too, without my know-
ledge or consent.

Moreover, at the same time the deep sadness of
beauty had entered my heart like a stroke; for ail
this mystery and loveliness, I realised poignantly,
was utterly independent and careless of me, as me ;
and that while I must pass, decay, grow old, these
manifestations would remain for ever young and
unalterably potent. And thus gradually had I
become permeated with the recognition of a region
hitherto unknown to me, and that I had always
depreciated in others and especially, it now occurred
to me, in my friend the old folk-lorist.

MAY DAY EVE 293

Here surely, I thought, was the beginning of con-
ditions which, carried a little further, must become
pathogenic. That the change was real and pregnant
I had no doubt whatever. My consciousness was
expanding, and I had caught it in the very act. I
had of course read much concerning the changes of
personality, swift, kaleidoscopic—had come across
something of it in my practice—and had listened
to the folk-lorist holding forth like a man inspired
upon ways and means of reaching concealed regions
of the human consciousness, and opening it to the
knowledge of things called magical, so that one
became free of a larger universe. But it was only
now for the first time, on these bare hills, in touch
with the wind and the rain, that I realised in how
simplea fashion the frontiers of consciousness could
shift this way and that, or with what touch of genuine
awe the certainty might come that one stood on the
borderland of new, untried, perhaps dangerous,
experiences. 4

- At any rate, it did now come to me that my con-
sciousness had shifted its frontiers very considerably,
and that whatever might happen must seem not
abnormal, but quite simple and inevitable, and of
course utterly true. This very simplicity, however,
doing no violence to my being, brought with it none
the less a sense of dread and discomfort ; and my
dim awareness that unknown possibilities were about
me in the night puzzled and distressed me perhaps
more than I cared to admit.

Ilf

ALL this that takes so long to describe became appa-
rent to me in a few seconds. What I had always
despised ascended the throne.

But with the finding of Bassett’s cottage as a
sign-post close to home, my former sang-froid, my
stupidity, would doubtless return, and my relief was
therefore considerable when at length a faint gleam
of light appeared through the mist, against which
the square dark shadow of the chimney line pointed
upwards. After all, 1 had not strayed so very far
out of the way. Now I could definitely ascertain
where I was wrong.

Quickening my pace, I scrambled over ’a broken
stone wall, and almost ran across the open bit
of grass to the door. One moment the black out-
line of the cottage was there in front of me, and
the next, when I stood actually against it—there was
nothing! I laughed to think how utterly I had been
deceived. Yet not utterly, for as I groped back
again over the wall, the cottage loomed up a little
to the left, with its windows lighted and friendly,
and I had only been mistaken in my angle of
approach after all. Yet again, as I hurried to
the door, the mist drove past and thickened a

MAY DAY EVE 2095

second time—and the cottage was not where I had
seen it !

My confusion increased a lot after that. I
scrambled about in all directions, rather foolishly
hurried, and over countless stone walls it seemed,
and completely dazed as to the true points of the
compass. Then suddenly, just when a kind of
despair came over me, the cottage stood there solidly
before my eyes, and I found myself not two feet
from thedoor. Was ever mist before so deceptive ?
And there, just behind it, I made out the row of
pines like a dark wave breaking through the night.
I sniffed the wet resinous odour with joy, and a
genuine thrill ran through me as I saw the unmis-
takable yellow light of the windows. At last I was
near home and my troubles would soon be over.

A cloud of birds rose with shrill cries off the roof
and whirled into the darkness when I knocked with
my stick on the door, and human voices, I was
almost certain, mingled somewhere with them,
though it was impossible to tell whether they were
within the cottage, or outside. It all sounded con-
fusedly with a rush of air like a little whirlwind, and
I stood there rather alarmed at the clamour of my
knocking. By way, too, of further proof that my
imagination had awakened, the significance of that
knocking at the door set something vibrating within
me that most surely had never vibrated before, so
that I suddenly realised with what atmosphere of
mystical suggestion is the mere act of knocking sur-
rounded—knocking at a door—both for him who
knocks, wondering what shall be revealed on open-

296 MAY DAY EVE

ing, and for him who stands within, waiting for the
summons of the knocker. I only know that I hesi-
tated a lot before making up my mind to knock a
second time.

And, anyhow, what happened subsequently came
in a sort of haze. Words and memory both fail me
when I try to record it truthfully, so that even the
faces are difficult to visualise again, the words
almost impossible to hear.

Before I knew it the door was open, and before |
could frame the words of my first brief question, I
was within the threshold, and the door was shut
behind me.

I had expected the little dark and narrow hall-way
of a cottage, oppressive of air and odour, but instead
I came straight into a room that was fullof light and
full of—people. And the air tasted like the air
about a mountain top.

To the end I never saw what produced the light,
nor understood how so many men and women found
space to move comfortably to and fro and pass each
other as they did within the confines of those four
walls. An uncomfortable sense of having intruded
upon some private gathering was, I think, my first
emotion ; though how the poverty-stricken country-
side could have produced such an assemblage
puzzled me beyond belief. And mysecond emotion
—if there was any division at all in the wave of
wonder that fairly drenched me—was feeling a
sort of glory in the presence of such an atmo-
sphere of splendid and vital youth. Everything
vibrated, quivered, shook about me, and I almost

MAY DAYEVE —_297

felt myself as an aged and decrepit man by com-
parison,

I know my heart gave a great fiery leap as I saw
them, for the faces that met me were fine, vigorous,
and comely, while burning everywhere through
their ripe maturity shone the ardours of youth
and a kind of deathless enthusiasm. Old, yet
eternally young they were, as rivers and mountains
count their years by thousands, yet remain ever
youthful; and the first effect of all those pairs of
eyes lifted to meet my own was to send a whirlwind
of unknown thrills about my heart and make me
catch my breath with mingled terror and delight.
A fear of death, and at the same time a sensation of
touching something vast and eternal that could
never die, surged through me.

A deep hush followed my entrance as all turned
to look atme. They stood, men and women, grouped
about a table, and something about them—not
their size alone—conveyed the impression of being
gigantic, giving me strangely novel realisations of
freedom, power, and immense existences more or
less than human.

I can only record my thoughts and impressions
as they came to me and as I dimly now remember
them. I had expected to see old Tom Bassett
crouching half asleep over a peat fire, a dim lamp
on the table beside him, and instead this assembly
of tall and splendid men and women stood there to
greet me, and stood in silence. It was little wonder
that at first the ready question died upon my lips,
and I almost forgot the words of my own language.

298 MAY DAY EVE

“TI thought this was Tom Bassett’s cottage!” I
managed to ask at length, and looked straight at the
man nearest me across.the table. He had wild hair
falling about his shoulders and a face of clear beauty.
His eyes too, like all the rest, seemed shrouded by
something veil-like that reminded me of the shadowy
man of whom I had first inquired the way. They
were shaded—and for some reason I was glad that
they were.

At the sound of my voice, unreal and thin, there
was a general movement throughout the room, as
though every one changed places, passing each other
like those shapes of fluid sort I had seen outside in
the mist. But no answer came. It seemed to me
that the mist even penetrated into the room about
me and spread inwardly over my thoughts.

“Ts this my way to the Manor House ?” I asked
again louder, fighting my inward confusion and
weakness. “Can no one tell me ?”

Then apparently every one began to answer at
once, or rather, not to answer directly, but to speak
to each other in such a way that I could easily over-
hear. The voices of the men were deep, and of the
women wonderfully musical, with a slow rhythm
like that of the sea, or of the wind through the pine
trees outside. But the unsatisfactory nature of what
they said only helped to increase my sense of con-
fusion and dismay.

“Yes,” said one; ‘Tom Bassett was here for
a while with the sheep, but his home was not
bere.’

“He asks the way to a house when he does not

MAY DAY EVE 299

even know the way to his own mind!” another
voice said, sounding overhead it seemed.

“And could he recognise the signs if we told
him ?” came in the singing tones of a woman’s voice
close beside me.

And then, with a noise more like running water,
or wind in the wings of birds, than anything else
I could liken it to, came several voices together:

“And what sort of way does he seek? The
splendid way, or merely the easy ?”

“Or the short way of fools !”

“But he must have some credentials, or he never
could have got as far as this,” came from another.

A laugh ran round the room at this, though what
there was to laugh at I could not imagine. It
sounded like wind rushing about the hills. I got
the impression too that the roof was somehow open
to the sky, for their laughter had such a spacious
quality in it, and the air was so cool and fresh, and
moving about in currents and waves.

“Tt was I who showed him the way,” cried a voice
belonging to some one who was looking straight
into my face over the table. ‘It was the safest way
for him once he had got so far——”

I looked up and met his eye, and the sentence
remained unfinished. It was the hurrying, shadowy
man of the hillside. He had the same shifting out-
line as the others now, and the same veiled and
shaded eyes, and as I looked the sense of terror
stirred and grew in me. I had come in to ask for
help, but now I was only anxious to be free of them
ail and out again in the rain and darkness on the

300° MAY DAY EVE

moor. Thoughts of escape filled my brain, and I
searched quickly for the door through which I had
entered. But nowhere could I discover it again.
The walls were bare; not even the windows were
visible. And the room seemed to fill and empty of
these figures as the waves of the sea fill and empty
a cavern, crowding one upon another, yet never
occupying more space, or less. So the coming and
going of these men and women always evaded
me.

And my terror became simply a terror that the
veils of their eyes might lift, and that they would
look at me with their clear, naked sight. I became
horribly aware of their eyes. It was not that I felt
them evil, but that I feared the new depths in me
their merciless and terrible insight would stir into
life. _My consciousness had expanded quite enough
for one night! I must escape at all costs and claim
my own self again, however limited. I must have
sanity, even if with limitations, but sanity at any
price.

But meanwhile, though I tried hard to find my
voice again, there came nothing but a thin piping
sound that was like reeds whistling where winds
meet about a corner. My throat was contracted,
and I could only produce the smallest and most
ridiculous of noises. The power of movement, too,
was far less than when I first came in, and every
moment it became more difficult to use my muscles,
so that I stood there, stiff and awkward, face to face
with this assemblage of shifting, wonderful people.

“And now,” continued the voice of the man who

MAY DAY EVE 301

had last spoken, “and now the safest way for him
will be through the other door, where he shall see
that which he may more easily understand.”

With a great effort I regained the power of move-
ment, while at the same time a burst of anger and
adetermination to be done with it all and to over-
come my dreadful confusion drove me forward.

He saw me coming, of course, and the others
indeed opened up and made a way for me, shifting
to one side or the other whenever I came too near
them, and never allowing me to touch them. But
at last, when I was close in front of the man, ready
both to speak and act, he was no longer there. I
never saw the actual change—but instead of a man
it was a woman! And when I turned with amaze-
ment, I saw that the other occupants, walking like
figures in some ancient ceremony, were moving
slowly towards the far end of the room. One by
one, as they filed past, they raised their calm,
passionless faces to mine, immensely vital, proud,
austere, and then, without further word or gesture,
they opened the door I had lost and disappeared
through it one by one into the darkness of the
night beyond. And as they went it seemed that
the mist swallowed them up and a gust of wind
caught them away, and the light also went with them,
leaving me alone with the figure who had last
spoken.

Moreover, it was just here that a most disquieting
thought flashed through my brain with unreasoning
conviction, shaking my personality, as it were, to the
foundations : viz., that I had hitherto been spending

302 MAY DAY EVE

my life in the pursuit of false knowledge, in the
mere classifying and labelling of effects, the analysis
of results, scientific so called; whereas it was the
folk-lorist, and such like, who with their dreams and
prayers were all the time on the path of real know-
ledge, the trail of causes; that the one was merely
adding to the mechanical comfort and safety of the
body, ultimately degrading the highest part of man,
and never advancing the type, while the other—but
then I had never yet believed in a soul—and now
was no time to begin, terror or noterror. Clearly,
my thoughts were wandering.

IV

IT was at this moment the sound of the purring first
reached me—deep, guttural purring—that made me
think at once of some large concealed animal. It
was precisely what I had heard many a time at the
Zoological Gardens, and I had visions of cows chew-
ing the cud, or horses munching hay in a stall out-
side the cottage. It was certainly an animal sound,
and one of pleasure and contentment.

Semi-darkness filled the room. Only a very faint
moonlight, struggling through the mist, came through
the window, and I moved back instinctively towards
the support of the wall against my back. Some-
where, through openings, came the sound of the
night driving over the roof, and far above I had
visions of those everlasting winds streaming by with
clouds as large as continents on their wings. Some-
thing in me wanted to sing and shout, but something
else in me at the same time was in a very vivid state
of unreasoning terror. I felt immense, yet tiny;
confident, yet timid ; a part of huge, universal forces,
yet an utterly small, personal, and very limited
being.

In the corner of the room on my right stood the
woman, Her face was hid bya mass of tumbling

304 MAY DAY EVE

hair, that made me think of living grasses on a field
in June. Thus her head was partially turned from
me, and the moonlight, catching her outline, just
revealed it against the wall like an impressionist
picture. Strange hidden memories stirred in the
depths of me, and for a moment I felt that I knew
all about her. I stared about me quickly, ner-
vously, trying to take in everything at once. Then
the purring sound grew much louder and closer,
and I forgot my notion that this woman was no
stranser to me and that I knew her as well as I
knew myself. “That purring thing was in the room
close beside me; Between us two, indeed, it was,
for I now saw that her arm nearest to me was
raised, and that she was pointing to the wall in
front of us.

Following the direction of her hand, I saw that
the wall was transparent, and that I could see
through a portion of it into a small square space
beyond, as though I was looking through gauze
instead of bricks. This small inner space was
lighted, and on stooping down I saw that it wasa
sort of cupboard or cell-like cage let into the wall.
The thing that purred was there in the centre
of it.

I looked closer. It was a being, apparently a
human being, crouching down in its narrow cage,
feeding. I saw the body stooping over a quantity of
coarse-looking, piled-up substance that was evidently
food. It was like a man huddled up. There it
squatted, happy and contented, with the minimum
of air, light, and space, dully satisfied with its

MAY DAY EVE 305

prisoned cage behind the bars, utterly unconscious
of the vast world about it, grunting with pleasure,
purring like a great cat, scornfully ignorant of what
might lie beyond. The cell, moreover, I saw was
a perfect masterpiece of mechanical contrivance
and inventive ingenuity—the very last word in
comfort, safety, and scientific skill. I was in
the act of trying to fix in my memory some
of the details of its construction and arrange-
ment, when I made a chance noise, and at
once became too agitated to note carefully what
I saw. For at the noise the creature turned, and I
saw that it was a human being—a man. I was aware
of a face close against my own as it pressed forward,
but a face with embryonic features impossible to
describe and utterly loathsome, with eyes, ears,
nose, and skin, only just sufficiently alive and deve-
loped to transfer the minimum of gross sensation to
the brain. The mouth, however, was large and
thick-lipped, and the jaws were still moving in the
act of slow mastication.

I shrank back, shuddering with mingled pity and
disgust, and at the same moment the woman beside
me called me softly by my own name. She had moved
forward a little so that she stood quite close to me,
full in the thin stream of moonlight that fell across
the floor, and I was conscious of a swift transition
from hell to heaven as my gaze passed from that
embryonic visage to a countenance so refined, so
majestic, so divinely sensitive in its strength, that it
was like turning from the face of a devil to look
upon the features of a goddess,

U

306 MAY DAY EVE

At the same instant I was aware that both beings
~—the creature and the woman—were moving rapidly
‘towards me.

A pain like a sharp sword dived deep down into
me and twisted horribly through my heart, for as I
saw them coming I realised in one swift moment of
terrible intuition that they had their life in me, that
they were born of my own being, and were indeed
projections of myself. They were portions of my
oe consciousness projected outwardly into ob-
toc uy fy, and their degree of reality was just as great
as that of any ether part of me.

With a dreadful swiftness they rushed towards me,
and in a single second had merged themselves into
my own being ; and I understood in some marvellous
manner beyond the possibility of doubt that they were
symbolic of my own soul: the dull animal part of
me that had hitherto acknowledged nothing beyond
its cage of minute sensations, and the higher part,
almost out of reach, and in touch with the stars, that
for the first time had feebly awakened into life during
my journey over the hill,

& & Fd a *

V

I FORGET altogether how it was that I escaped,
whether by the windowor the door. I only know I
found myself a moment later making great speed
over the moor, followed by screaming birds and
shouting wind, straight on the track downhill
towards the Manor House. Something must have
guided me, for I went with the instinct of an animal,
having no uncertainties as to turnings, and saw the
welcome lights of windows before I had covered
another mile. And all the way I felt as though a
great sluice gate had been opened to let a flood of
new perceptions rush like a sea over my inner being,
so that I was half ashamed and half delighted, partly
angry, yet partly happy.

Servants met me at the door, several of them, and
I was aware at once of an atmosphere of commotion
in the house. I arrived breathless and hatless, wet
to the skin, my hands scratched and my boots caked
with mud.

“We made sure you were lost, sir,” I heard the
old butler say, and I heard my own reply, faintly,
like the voice of some one else :

“1 thought so too.”

A minute later I found myself in the study, with

308 MAY DAY EVE

the old folk-lorist standing opposite. In his hands
he held the book I had brought down for him in my
bag, ready addressed. There was a curious smile on
his face.

“Tt never occurred to me that you would dare to
walk—to-night of all nights,” he was saying.

I stared without a word. I was bursting with the
desire to tell him something of what had happened
and try to be patient with his explanations, but
when I sought for words and sentences my story
seemed suddenly flat and pointless, and the details
of my adventure began to evaporate and melt away,
and seemed hard to remember.

“T had an exciting walk,” I stammered, still a
little breathless from running. ‘The weather was
all right when I started from the station.”

“The weather’s all right still,” he said, “ though
you may have found some evening mist on the top
of the hills. But it’s not that I meant.”

“What then?”

“T meant,” he said, still laughing quizzically,
“that you were a very brave man to walk to-night
over the enchanted hills, because this is May Day
eve, and on May Day eve, you know, They have
power over the minds of men, and can put glamour
upon the imagination——”

“Who— they?’ What do you mean ?”

He put my book down on the table beside him
and looked quietly for a moment into my eyes, and
as he did so the memory of my adventure began to
revive in detail, and I thought quickly of the shadowy
man who had shown me the way first. What could

MAY DAY EVE 309”

it have been in the face of the old folk-lorist that
made me think of this man? A dozen things ran
like flashes through my excited mind, and while I
attempted to seize them I heard the old man’s voice
continue. He seemed to be talking to himself as
much as to me.

“The elemental beings you have always scoffed
at, of course ; they who operate ceaselessly behind
the screen of appearances, and who fashion and
mould the moods of the mind. And an extremist
like you—for extremes are always dangerously weak
—is their legitimate prey.”

“Pshaw !” I interrupted him, knowing that my
manner betrayed me hopelessly, and that he had
guessed much. “Any man may have subjective
experiences, I suppose——’”

Then I broke off suddenly. The change in his
face made me start ; it had taken on for the moment
so exactly the look of the man on the hillside. The
eyes gazing so steadily into mine had shadows in
them, I thought.

“Glamour!” he was saying, “all glamour! One
of them must have come very close to you, or per-
haps touched you.” Then he asked sharply, “ Did
you meet any one? Did you speak with any one ?”

“] came by Tom Bassett’s cottage,” I said. “I
didn’t feel quite sure of my way and I went in and
asked.”

“ All glamour,” he repeated to himself, and then
aloud to me, “And as for Bassett’s cottage, it was
burnt down three years ago, and nothing stands
there now but broken, roofless walls——”

310 MAY DAY EVE

He stopped because I had seized him by the arm.
In the shadows of the lamp-lit room behind him I
thought I caught sight of dim forms moving past
the book-shelves. But when my eye tried to focus
them they faded and slipped away again into ceiling
and walls. The details of the hill-top cottage, how-
ever, started into life again at the sight, and I seized
my friend’s arm to tell him. But instantly, when I
tried, it all faded away again as though it had been a
dream, and I could recall nothing intelligible to
repeat to him.

He looked at me and laughed.

“They always obliterate the memory afterwards,”
he said gently, “so that little remains beyond a
mood, or an emotion, to show how profoundly deep
their touch has been. Though sometimes part of
the change remains and lee eee permanent—as I
hope in your case it may.”

Then, before I had time to answer, to swear, or
to remonstrate, he stepped-briskly past me and
closed the door into the hall, and then drew me
aside farther into the room. The change that I
could not understand was still working in his face
and eyes.

“Tf you have courage enough left to come with
me,” he said, speaking very seriously, “we will go
out again and see more. Up till midnight, you
know, there is still the opportunity, and with me
perhaps you won’t feel so—so———”

It was impossible somehow to refuse ; everything
combined to make me go. We had a little food and
then went out into the hall, and he clapped a wide-

MAY DAY EVE 311

awake on his grey hairs. I took a cloak and seized
a walking-stick from the stand. I really hardly
knew what I was doing. The new world I had
awakened-to seemed still a-quiver about me,

As we passed out on to the gravel drive the light
from the hall windows fell upon his face, and I saw
that the change I had been so long observing was
nearing its completeness, for there breathed about
him that keen, wonderful atmosphere of eternal
youth I had felt upon the inmates of the cottage.
He seemed to have gone back forty years; a veil
was gathering over his eyes ; and I could have sworn
that somehow his stature had increased, and that he
moved beside me with a vigour and power I had
never seen in him before.

And as we began to climb the hill together in
silence I saw that the stars were clear overhead and
there was no mist, that the trees stood motionless
without wind, and that beyond us on the summit
of the hills there were lights dancing to and fro,
appearing and disappearing like the reflection of
stars in water.

? a ® & a:

MISS SLUMBUBBLE—AND
CLAUSTROPHOBIA

Miss DAPHNE SLUMBUBBLE was a nervous lady of
uncertain age who invariably went abroad in the
spring. It was her one annual holiday, and she
slaved for it all the rest of the year, saving money
by the many sad devices known only to those who
find their incomes after forty “ barely enough,” and
always hoping that something would one day hap-
pen to better her dreary condition of cheap tea, tin
loaves, and weekly squabbles with the laundress.

This spring holiday was the only time she really
lived in the whole year, and she half starved
herself for months immediately after her return, so
as to put by quickly enough money for the journey
in the following year. Once those six pounds were
safe she felt better. After that she only had to save
so many sums of four francs, each four francs
meaning another day in the little cheap pension she
always went to on the flowery slopes of the Alps of
Valais.

Miss Slumbubble was exceedingly conscious of
the presence of men. They made her nervous and
afraid. She thought in her heart that all men were

314 MISS SLUMBUBBLE

untrustworthy, not excepting policemen and clergy-
men, for in her early youth she had been cruelly
deceived by a man to whom she had unreservedly
given her heart. He had suddenly gone away and
left her without a word of explanation, and some
months later had married another woman and
allowed the announcement to appear in the papers.
It is true that he had hardly once spoken to
Daphne. But that was nothing. For the way he
looked at her, the way he walked about the room,
the very way he avoided her at the tea-parties where
she used to meet him at her rich sister’s house—
indeed, everything he did or left undone, brought
convincing proof to her fluttering heart that he
loved her secretly, and that he knew she loved him.
His near presence disturbed her dreadfully, so much
so that she invariably spilt her tea if he came even
within scenting-distance of her ; and once, when he
crossed the room to offer her bread and butter, she
was so certain the very way he held the plate inter-
preted his silent love, that she rose from her chair,
looked straight into his eyes—and took the whole
plate in a state of delicious confusion !

But all this was years ago, and she had long since
learned to hold her grief in subjection and to pre-
vent her life being too much embittered by the
treachery—she felt it was treachery—of one man.
She still, however, felt anxious and self-conscious in
the presence of men, especially of silent, unmarried
men, and to some extent it may be said that this
fear haunted her life. It was shared, however, with
other fears, probably all equally baseless, Thus,

AND CLAUSTROPHOBIA ots
she lived in constant dread of fire, of railway
accidents, of runaway cabs, and of being locked
into a small, confined space. The former fears she
shared, of course, with many other persons of
both sexes, but the latter, the dread of confined
spaces, was entirely due, no doubt, to a story
she had heard in early youth to the effect that
her father had once suffered from that singular
nervous malady, claustrophobia (the fear of closed
spaces), the terror of being caught in a confined
place without possibility of escape.

Thus it was clear that Miss Daphne Slumbubble,
this good, honest soul with jet flowers in her bonnet
and rows of coloured photographs of Switzerland
on her bedroom mantelpiece, led a life unnecessarily
haunted.

The thought of the annual holiday, however,
compensated for all else. In her lonely room
behind Warwick Square she stewed through the
dusty heat of summer, fought her way pluckily
through the freezing winter fogs, and then, with the
lengthening days, worked herself steadily into a
fever heat of joyous anticipation as she counted the
hours to the taking of her ticket in the first week of
May. When the day came her happiness was so
great that she wished for nothing else in the world.
Even her name ceased to trouble her, for once on
the other side of the Channel it sounded quite
different on the lips of the foreigners, while in the
little pension she was known as “Mlle. Daphné,”
and the mere sound brought music into her heart,
The odious surname belonged to the sordid London

316 MISS SLUMBUBBLE

life. It had nothing to do with the glorious days
that Mlle. Daphné spent. among the mountain
tops.

The platform at Victoria was already crowded
when she arrived a good hour before the train
started, and got her tiny faded trunk weighed and
labelled. She was so excited that she talked un-
necessarily to any one who would listen—to any one
in station uniform, that is. Already in fancy she
saw the blue sky above the shining snow peaks,
heard the tinkling cow-bells, and sniffed the odours
of pinewood and sawmill. She imagined the cheer-
ful table d’héte room with its wooden floor and rows
of chairs ; the diligence winding up the hot white
road far below; the fragrant café complet in her
bedroom at 730—and then the long mornings
with sketch-book and poetry-book under the forest
- shade, the clouds trailing slowly across the great
cliffs, and the air always humming with the echoes
of falling water.

** And you feel sure the passage will be calm, do
you?” she asked the porter for the third time, as
she bustled to and fro by his side.

“Well, there ain’t no wind ’ere, at any rate,
Miss,” he replied cheerfully, putting her small box
on a barrow.

“Such a lot of people go by this train, don’t
they ?” she piped. .

“Oh, a tidy few. This is the season for foreign
parts, I suppose.”

“Yes, yes; and the trains on the other side will
be very full, too, I daresay,” she said, following him

AND CLAUSTROPHOBIA 317

down the platform with quick, pattering footsteps,
chirping all the way like a happy bird,

“ Quite likely, Miss.”

“T shall go in a ‘ Ladies only,’ you know. Ifalways
do every year. I think it’s safer, isn’t it ?”

“ [’ll see to it all for yer, Miss,” replied the patient
porter. “ But the train ain’t in yet, not for another
’arf hour or so.”

“Oh, thank you ; then I’ll be here when it comes.
‘Ladies only,’ remember, and second class, and a
corner seat facing the engine—no, back to the
engine, I mean; and I do hope the Channel will be
smooth. Do you think the wind—— ?”

But the porter was out of hearing by this time,
and Miss Slumbubble went wandering about the
platform watching the people arrive, studying the
blue and yellow advertisements of the Céte d’azur,
and waggling her jet beads with delight—with pas-
sionate delight—as she thought of her own little
village in the high Alps where the snow crept down
to a few hundred feet above the church and the
meadows were greener than any in the whole wide
world.

“T’ve put yer wraps in a ‘ Lidies only,’ Miss,” said
the porter at length, when the train came in, “and
you've got the corner back to the engine all to yer-
self, an’ quite comfortable. Thank you, Miss.”
He touched his cap and pocketed his sixpence, and
the fussy little traveller went off to take up her
position outside the carriage door for another half
hour before the train started. She was always very
nervous about trains; not only fearful of possible

318 MISS SLUMBUBBLE

accidents to the engine and carriages, but of unto-
ward happenings to the occupants of corridor-less
compartments during long journeys without stops.
The mere sight of a railway station, with its smoke
and whistling and luggage, was sufficient to set her
imagination in the direction of possible disaster.

The careful porter had piled all her belongings
neatly in the corner for her: three newspapers, a
magazine and a novel, a little bag to carry food in,
two bananas and a Bath bun in paper, a bundle of
wraps tied with a long strap, an umbrella, a bottle
of Yanatas, an opera-glass (for the mountains), and a
camera. She counted them all over, rearranged
them a little differently, and then sighed a bit,
partly from excitement, partly by way of protest at
the delay.

A number of people came up and eyed the com-
partment critically and seemed on the point of getting
in, but no one actually took possession. One lady put
her umbrella in the corner, and then came tearing
down the platform a few minutes later to take it
away again, as though she had suddenly heard the
train was not to start at all. There was much bust-
ling to and fro, and a good deal of French was
audible, and the sound of it thrilled Miss Daphne
with happiness, for it was another delightful little
anticipation of what was to come. Even the lan-
guage sounded like a holiday, and brought with it a
whiff of mountains and the subtle pleasures of sweet
freedom.

Then a fat Frenchman arrived and inspected the
carriage, and attempted to climb in. But she

AND CLAUSTROPHOBIA 319

instantly pounced upon him in courageous dis-
may.

“Mais, c'est pour dames, m’sieur!” she cried,
pronouncing it “dam.”

“Oh, damn!” he exclaimed in English; “I
didn’t notice.” And the rudeness of the man—it
was the fur coat over his arm made her think he was
French—set her all in a flutter, so that she jumped
in and took her seat hurriedly, and spread her many
parcels in a protective and prohibitive way about her.’

For the tenth time she opened her black beaded
bag and took out her purse and made sure her
ticket was in it, and them counted over her belong-
ings.

“YT do hope,” she murmured, “I do hope that
stupid porter has put in my luggage all right, and
that the Channel won’t be rough. Porters ave so
stupid. One ought never to lose sight of them till
the luggage is actuallyin. I think I’d better pay the
extra fare and go first class on the boat if it is
rough. I can carry all my own packages, I think.”

At that moment the man came for tickets. She
searched everywhere for her own, but could not
find it.

“T’m certain I had it a moment ago,” she said
breathlessly, while the man stood waiting at the
open door. “I know I had it—only this very
minute. Dear me, what can I have done with it?
Ah! here it is!”

The man took so long examining the little tourist
cover that she was afraid something must be
wrong with it, and when at last he tore out a leaf

320 MISS SLUMBUBBLE

and handed back the rest a sort of panic seized
her. :

“Tt’s all right, isn’t it, guard? I mean J’m all
right, am I not ?” she asked.

The guard closed the door and locked it.

“ All right for Folkestone, ma’am,” he said, and
was gone.

There was much whistling and shouting and
running up and down the platform, and the
inspector was standing with his hand raised and the
whistle at his lips, waiting to blow and looking
cross, Suddenly her own porter flew past with an
empty barrow. She dashed her head out of the
window and hailed him.

“ You're sure you put my luggage in aren’t, you ?”
she cried, The man did not or would not hear,
and as the train moved slowly off she bumped her
head against an old lady standing on the platform
who was looking the other way and waving to
some one in a front carriage.

“Ooh!” cried Miss Slumbubble, straightening
her bonnet, “ you really should look where you're
looking, madam!”—and then, realising she had
said something foolish, she withdrew into the
carriage and sank back in a fluster on the cushions.

“Oh!” she gasped again, “oh dear! I’m actually
off at last. It’s too goodto betrue. Oh, that horrid
London!”

Then she counted her money over again, examined
her ticket once more, and touched each of her many
packages with a long finger in a cotton glove, saying,
“ That's there, and that, and that, and—that/” And

AND CLAUSTROPHOBIA 321

then turning and pointing at herself she added, with
a little happy laugh, “and that!”

The train gathered speed, and the dirty roofs and
sea of ugly chimneys flew by as the dreary miles of
depressing suburbs revealed themselves through the
windows. She put all her parcels up in the rack
and then took them all down again ; and after a bit
she put a few up—a carefully selected few that she
would not need till Folkestone—and arranged the
others, some upon the seat beside her, and some
opposite. The paper bag of bananas she kept in her
lap, where it grew warmer and warmer and more
and more dishevelled in appearance.

“Actually off at last!” she murmured again,
catching her breath a little in her joy. ‘“ Paris,
Berne, Thun, Frutigen,’ she gave herself a little
hug that made the jet beads rattle; “then the long
diligence journey up those gorgeous mountains,”
she knew every inch of the way, “anda clear fifteen
days at the pension, or even eighteen days, if I can
get the cheaper room. Wheeeee! Can it be true?
Can it be really true?” In her happiness she made
sounds just like a bird.

She looked out of the window, where green fields
had replaced the rows of streets. She opened her
novel and tried to read. She played with the news-
papers in a vain attempt to keep her eye on any one
column. It was all in vain. A scene of wild beauty
held her inner eye and made all else dull and unin-
teresting. The train sped on—slowly enough to her
—yet every moment of the journey, every turn of the
creaking wheels that brought her nearer, every little

x

322 MISS SLUMBUBBLE

detail of the familiar route, became a source of
keenest anticipatory, happiness to her. She no
longer cared about her name, or her silent and faith-
less lover of long ago, or of anything in the world
but the fact that her absorbing little annual passion
was now once again in a fair way to be gratified.

Then, quite suddenly, Miss Slumbubble realised
her actual position, and felt afraid, unreasonably
afraid, For the first time she became conscious
that she was alone, alone in the compartment of an
exptess train, and not even of a corridor express
train.

Hitherto the excitement of getting off had occu-
pied her mind to the exclusion of everything else,
and if she had realised her solitude at all, she
had realised it pleasurably. But now, in the
first pause for breath as it were, when she had
examined her packages, counted her money, glared
at her ticket, and all the rest of it for the twentieth
time, she leaned back in her seat and knew witha
distinct shock that she was alone in a railway carriage
on a comparatively long journey, alone for the first
time in her life in a rattling, racing, shrieking train.
She sat bolt upright and tried to collect herself a little.

Of all the emotions, that of fear is probably the
least susceptible to the power of suggestion, certainly
of auto-suggestion ; and of vague fear that has no
obvious cause this is especially true. With a fear
of known origin one can argue, humour it, pacify,
turn on the hose of ridicule—in a word, suggest that
it depart ; but with a fear that rises stealthily out of
no comprehensible causes the mind finds itself at a

AND CLAUSTROPHOBIA 323

complete loss, The mere assertion “I am not
afraid” is as useless and empty as the subtler
kind of suggestion that lies in affecting to ignore
it altogether. Searching for the cause, moreover,
tends to confuse the mind, and searching in Bsa to
terrify.

Miss Slumbubble pulled herself sharply ae
and began to search for what made her afraid, but
for a long time she searched in vain.

At first she searched externally: she thought
perhaps it had something to do with one of her
packages, and she placed them all out ina row on
the seat in front of her and examined each in turn,
bananas, camera, food bag, black bead bag, &c. &c.
But she discovered poring among them to cause
alarm.

Then she searched internally: her thoughts,
her rooms in London, her pension, her money,
ticket, plans in general, her future, her past, her
health, her religion, anything and everything among
the events of her inner life she passed in review, yet
found nothing that could have caused this sudden
sense of being troubled and afraid.

Moreover, as she vainly searched, her fear increased,
She got into a regular nervous flurry.

“T declare if I’m not all in a perspiration!” she
exclaimed aloud, and shifted down the dirty cushions
to another place, looking anxiously about her as she
did so. She probed everywhere in her thoughts to
find the reason of her fear, but could think of
nothing. Yet in her soul there was a sense of
growing distress.

324 MISS SLUMBUBBLE

She found her new seat no more comfortable
than the one before it, and shifted in turn into all
the corners of the carriage, and down the middle as
well, till at last she had tried every possible part of
it. In each place she felt less at ease than in the
one before. She got up and looked into the empty
racks, under the seats, beneath the heavy cushions,
which she lifted with difficulty. Then she put all
the packages back again into the rack, dropping
several of them in her nervous hurry, and being
obliged to kneel on the floor to recover them from
under the seats. This made her breathless. More-
over, the dust got into her throat and made her
cough. Hereyes smarted and she grew uncomfort-
ably warm. Then, quite accidentally, she caught
sight of her reflection in the coloured picture of
Boulogne under the rack, and the appearance she
presented added greatly to her dismay. She looked
so unlike herself, and wore such an odd expression.
It was almost like the face of another person
altogether.

The sense of alarm, once wakened, is fed by any-
thing and everything, from a buzzing fly to a dark
cloud in the sky. The woman collapsed on to the
seat behind her in a distressing fluster of nervous
fear.

But Miss Daphne Slumbubble had pluck. She
was not so easily dismayed after all. She had read
somewhere that terror was sometimes dispersed by
the loud and strong affirmation of one’s own name.
She believed much that she read, provided it was

AND CLAUSTROPHOBIA 325

plainly and vigorously expressed, and she acted at
once on this knowledge.

*‘T am Daphne Slumbubble !” she affirmed in a
firm, confident tone of voice, sitting stiffly on the
edge of the seat; “I am not afraid—of anything.”
She added the last two words as an after-thought.
“T am Daphne Slumbubble, and I have paid for my
ticket, and know where I am going, and my luggage
is in the van, and I have all my smaller things here!”
She enumerated them one by one; she omitted
nothing.

Yet the sound of her own voice, and especially
of her own name, added apparently to her distress.
It sounded oddly, like a voice outside the carriage.
Everything seemed suddenly to have become
strange, and unfamiliar, and unfriendly: She
moved across to the opposite corner and looked
out of the window: trees, fields, and occasional
country houses flew past in endless swift succession.
The country looked charming; she saw rooks
flying and farm-horses moving laboriously over the
fields. What in the world was there to feel afraid
of ? Whatin the world made her so restless and
fidgety and frightened ? Once again she examined
her packages, her ticket, her money. All was
right.

Then she dashed across to the window and tried
to open it. The sash stuck. She pulledand pulled
in vain. The sash refused to yield. She ran to the
other window, with a like result. Both were closed.
Both refused to open. Her fear grew. She was

326 MISS SLUMBUBBLE

locked in! The windows would not open. Some-
thing was wrong with the carriage. She suddenly
recalled the way every one had examined it and
refused to enter. There must be something the
matter with the carriage—something she had omitted
to observe. Terror ran like a flame through her.
She trembled and was ready to cry.

She ran up and down between the cushioned
seats like a bird in a cage, casting wild glances at
the racks and under the seats and out of the
windows. A sudden panic took her, and she tried
to open the door. It was locked. She flew to the
other door. That, too, was locked. Good Heavens,
both were locked! She was locked in. She was a
prisoner. She was caught in a closed space.
The mountains were out of her reach—the free open
woods—the wide fields, the scented winds of
heaven. She was caught, hemmed in, celled,
restricted like a prisoner ina dungeon. The thought
maddened her, The feeling that she could not
reach the open spaces of sky and forest, of field and
blue horizon, struck straight into her soul and
touched all that she held most dear. She screamed.
She ran down between the cushioned seats and
screamed aloud.

Of course, no one heard her. The thunder of
the train killed the feeble sound of her voice. Her
voice was the cry of the imprisoned person.

Then quite suddenly she understood what it all
meant. There was nothing wrong with the carriage,
or with her parcels, or with the train. Shesat down
abruptly upon the dirty cushions and faced the

q

AND CLAUSTROPHOBIA 327

position there and then. It had nothing to do with
her past or her future, her ticket or her money, her
religion or her health. It was something else
entirely. She knew what it was, and the know-
ledge brought icy terror at once. She had at last
labelled the source of her consternation, and the
discovery increased rather than lessened her
distress.

It was the fear of closed spaces. It was claustro-
phobia!

There could no longer be any doubt about it:
She was shut in. She was enclosed in a narrow
space from which she could notescape. The walls
and floor and ceiling shut her in implacably. The
doors was fastened; the windows were sealed,
there was no escape.

“That porter might have told me!” she
exclaimed inconsequently, mopping her face.
Then the foolishness of the saying dawned upon
her, and she thought her mind must be going.
That was the effect of claustrophobia, she remem-
bered : the mind went, and one said and did foolish
things. Oh, to get out into a free open space,
uncornered! Here she was trapped, horribly
trapped.

“The guard man should never have locked me
in—never!” she cried, and ran up and down
between the seats, throwing her weight first against
the door and then against the other. Of course,
fortunately, neither of them yielded.

Thinking food might calm her, perhaps, she took
down the banana bag and peeled the squashy over

328 MISS SLUMBUBBLE

ripe fruit, munching it with part of the Bath bun
from the other bag, and sitting midway on the
forward seat. Suddenly the right-hand window
dropped with a bang and arattle. It had only been
stuck after all, and her efforts, aided by the shaking
of the train, had completed its undoing, or rather
its unclosing. Miss Slumbubble shrieked, and
dropped her banana and bun.

But the shock passed in a moment when she saw
what had happened, and that the window was open
and the sweet air pouring in from the flying fields.
She rushed up and put her head out. This was
followed by her hand, for she meant to open the
door from the outside if possible. Whatever hap-
pened, the one imperative thing was that she must
get into open space. The handle turned easily
enough, but the door was locked higher up and she
could not make it budge. She put her head farther
out, so that the wind tore the jet bonnet off her head
and left it twirling in the dusty whirlwind on the
line far behind, and this sensation of the air whist-
ling past her ears and through her flying hair
somehow or other managed to make her feel wilder
than ever. In fact, she completely lost her head,
and began to scream at the top of her voice:

““Y’m locked in! I’ma prisoner! Help, help!”
she yelled. )

A window opened in the next compartment and a
young man put his head out.

“What the deuce is the matter? Are you being
murdered ?” he shouted down the wind.

“Ym locked in! I’m locked in!” screamed the

AND CLAUSTROPHOBIA 329

hatless lady, wrestling furiously with the obdurate
door handle.

“Don’t open the door!” cried the young man
anxiously.

“T can’t, you idiot! I can’t!”

“Wait a moment and I’ll come to you. Don’t
try to get out. I'll climb along the foot-board.
Keep calm, madam, keep calm. I'll save you.”

He disappeared from view. Good Heavens! he
meant to crawl out and come to her carriage by the
window! Aman, a young man, would shortly be
in the compartment with her. Locked in, too!
No, it was impossible. That was worse than the
claustrophobia, and she could not endure such a
thing for a moment. The young man would cer-
tainly kill her and steal all her packages.

She ran once or twice frantically up and down
the narrow floor, Then she looked out of the
window.

“Oh, bless my heart and soul!” she cried out,
“he’s out already !”

The young man, evidently thinking the lady was
being assaulted, had climbed out of the window and
was pluckily coming to her rescue. He was already
on the foot-board, swinging by the brass bars on the
side of the coach as the train rocked down the line
at a fearful pace.

But Miss Slumbubble took a deep breath and
a sudden determination. She did, in fact, the
only thing left to her to do. She pulled the com-
munication cord once, twice, three times, and
then drew the window up with a sudden snap

330 MISS SLUMBUBBLE

just before the young man’s head appeared round
the corner of the sash, Then, stepping backwards,
she trod on the slippery banana bag and fell flat on
her back upon the dirty floor between the seats.

The train slackened speed almost immediately and
came toastop. Miss Slumbubble still sat on the
floor, staring in a dazed fashion at her toes. She real-
ised the enormity of her offence, and was thoroughly
frightened. She had actually pulled the cord!—
the cord that is meant to be seen but not touched,
the little chain that meant a £5 fine and all sorts of
dire consequences.

She heard voices shouting and doors opening, and
a moment later a key rattled near her head, and she
saw the guard swinging up on to the steps of the
carriage. The door was wide open, and the young
man from the next compartment was explaining
volubly what he seen and heard.

“JT thought it was murder,” he was saying.

But the guard pushed quickly into the carriage
and lifted the panting and dishevelled lady on to the
seat.

“Now, what’s all this about ? Was it you that
pulled the cord, ma’am?” he asked somewhat
roughly. “It’s serious stoppin’ a train like this, you
know, a mail train.”

Now Miss Daphne did not mean to tell a lie, It
was not deliberate, that is to say. It seemed to slip
out of its own accord as the most natural and
obvious thing to say. For she was terrified at what
she had done, and had to find a good excuse. Yet
how in the world could she describe to this stupid

AND CLAUSTROPHOBIA 331

and hurried official all she had gone through ?
Moreover, he would be so certain to think she was
merely drunk,

“It was a man,” she said, falling back instinc-
tively upon her natural enemy. “There’s a man
somewhere!” She glanced round at the racks and
under the seats. The guard followed her eyes.

“T don’t see no man,” he declared ; “all I know
is you've stopped the mail train without any visible
or reasonable cause. ‘‘I’ll be obliged with your
name and address, ma’am, if you please,” he added,
taking a dirty note-book from his pocket and wetting
the blunt pencil in his mouth.

**Let me get air—at once,” she said. “I must
have air first. Of course you shall have my name,
The whole affair is disgraceful.” She was getting
her wits back. She moved to the door.

“That may be, ma’am,” the man said, “but I’ve
my duty to perform, and I must report the facts, and
then get the train on as quick as possible. You
must stay in the carriage, please. We've been
waiting ’ere a bit too long already.”

Miss Slumbubble met her fate calmly. She
realised it was not fair to keep all the passengers
waiting while she got a little fresh air, There was
a brief confabulation between the two guards, which
ended by the one who had first come taking his
seat in her carriage, while the other blew his whistle
and the train started off again and flew at great
speed the remaining miles to Folkestone.

“Now I'll take the name and address, if you
please, ma’am,” he said politely. “Daphny, yes,

332 MISS SLUMBUBBLE

thank you, Daphny without a hef, all right, thank
you.” 3

He wrote it all down laboriously while the hatless
little lady sat opposite, indignant, excited, ready to
be voluble the moment she could think what was best
to say, and above all fearful that her holiday would
be delayed, if not prevented altogether.

Presently the guard looked up at her and put his
note-book away in an inner pocket. It was just
after he had entered the number of the carriage.

“You see, ma'am,” he explained with sudden
suavity, ‘this communication cord is only for cases
of real danger, and if I report this, as I should do, it
means a ’eavy fine. You must ’ave just pulled it as
a sort of hexperiment, didn’t you ?”

Something in the man’s voice caught her ear;
there was a change in it; his manner, too, had
altered somehow. He suddenly seemed to have
become apologetic. She was quick to notice the
change, though she could not understand what
caused it. It began, she fancied, from the moment
he entered the number of the carriage in his note-
book.

“It’s the delay to the train I’ve got to explain,”
he continued, as if speaking to himself, “and I
can’t put it all on to the engine-driver——”

“ Perhaps we shall make it up and there won’t
be any delay,” ventured Miss Slumbubble, carefully
smoothing her hair and rearranging the stray
hairpins.

“and I don’t want to get no one into any
kind of trouble, least of all myself,” he continued,

AND CLAUSTROPHOBIA 333

wholly ignoring the interruption. Then he turned
round in his seat and stared hard at his companion
with rather a worried, puzzled expression of coun-
tenance and a shrug of the shoulders that was
distinctly apologetic. Plainly, she thought, he was
preparing the way for a compromise—for a tip!

The train was slackening speed; already it was
in the cutting where it reverses and is pushed
backwards on to the pier. Miss Slumbubble was
desperate. She had never tipped a man before in
her life except for obvious and recognised services,
and this seemed to her like compounding a felony,
or some such dreadful thing. Yet so much was at
stake: she might be detained at Folkestone for days
before the matter came into court, to say nothing of
a £5 fine, which meant that her holiday would be
utterly stopped. The blue and white mountains
swam into her field of vision, and she heard the wind
in the pine forest.

“ Perhaps you would give this to your wife,” she
said timidly, holding out a sovereign.

The guard looked at it and shook his head.

“JT ’aven’t got a wife, exackly,” he said ; “but it
isn’t money I want. What I want is to ’ush this
little matter up as quietly as possible. I may lose
my job over this—but if you'll agree to say nothing
about it, I think I can square the driver and t’other
guard.”

“7 won't say anything, of course,” stammered the
astonished lady. “ But I don’t think I quite under-
stand 2

“You couldn’t understand either till I tell you,”

334 MISS SLUMBUBBLE

he replied, looking greatly relieved ; “ but the fac’
is, I never noticed the carriage till I come to
put the number down, and then I see it’s the very
one—the very same number——”

“What number ?”

He stared at her for a moment without speaking.
Then he appeared to take a great decision.

“Well, I’m in your ’ands anyhow, ma’am, and I
may as well tell you the lot, and then we both ’elps
the other out. It’s this way, you see. You ain’t the
first to. try and jump out of this carriage—not by a
long ways. It’s been done before by a good num-
ber——”

“ Gracious !”

“ But the first who did it was that German woman,
Binckmann——”

“ Binckmann, the woman who was found on the
line last year, and the carriage door open ?” cried
Miss Slumbubble, aghast.

“That’s her. This was the carriage she jumped
from, and they tried to say it was murder, but
couldn’t find any one who could have done it, and
then they said she must have been crazy. And
since then this carriage was said to be ’aunted,
because so many other people tried to do the same
thing and throw theirselves out too, till the company
changed the number——”

“To this number ?” cried the excited spinster,
pointing to the figures on the door.

“That’s it,ma’am. And if you look you'll see this
number don’t follow on with the others. Even then
the thing didn’t stop, and we got orders to let no

AND CLAUSTROPHOBIA 335

one in. That’s where I made my mistake, I left
the door unlocked, and they put you in. If this gets
in the papers I’ll be dismissed for sure. The com-
pany’s awful strict about that.”

“Ym terrified!” exclaimed Miss Slumbubble,
“for that’s exactly what I felt-——”

“That you'd got to jump out, you mean ?” asked
the guard. f

“Yes. The terror of being shut in.”

“That's what the doctors said Binckmann had—
the fear of being shut up in a tight place, They gave it
some long name, but that’s what it was: she couldn’t
abide being closedin. Now, here we are at the pier,
~ ma’am, and, if you'll allow me, I’ll help you tocarry
your little bits of luggage.”

“Oh, thank you, guard, thank you,” she said
faintly, taking his proffered hand and getting out
with infinite relief on to the platform.

“ Tchivalry ain’t dead yet, Miss,” he replied gal-
lantly, as he loaded himself up with her packages
and led the way down to the steamer.

Ten minutes later the deep notes of the syren
echoed across the pier, and the paddles began to
churn the green sea. And Miss Daphne Slum-
bubble, hatless but undismayed, went abroad to
flutter the remnants of her faded youth before the
indifferent foreigners in the cheap pension among
the Alps.

*

Baar (Woe ;

frre? A j
fe (gy pa oe |
; « FS

THE WOMAN’S GHOST STORY

“Yes,” she said, from her seat in the dark corner,
“T’ll tell you an experience if you care to listen.
And, what’s more, I’ll tell it briefly, without trim-
mings—I mean without unessentials. That's a thing
story-tellers never do, you know,” she laughed.
“They drag in all the unessentials and leave their
listeners to disentangle ; but I’ll give you just the
essentials, and you can make of it what you please.
But on one condition: that at the end you ask
no questions, because I can’t explain it and have no
wish to.”

We agreed. Wewereallserious. After listening
to a dozen prolix stories from people who merely
wished to “talk” but had nothing to tell, we wanted
“ essentials.”

“In those days,” she began, feeling from the
quality of our silence that we were with her, “in
those days I was interested in psychic things, and
had arranged to sit up alone in a haunted house in
the middle of London. It was a cheap and dingy
lodging-house in a mean street, unfurnished. I had
already made a preliminary examination in daylight
that afternoon, and the keys from the caretaker, who

lived next door, were in my pocket, The story was
¥

338 THE WOMAN'S GHOST STORY

a good one—satisfied me, at any rate, that it was
worth investigating ; and I won’t weary you with
details as to the woman’s murder and all the tire-
some elaboration as to why the place was alive.
Enough that it was.

“‘T was a good deal bored, therefore, to see a man,
whom I took to be the talkative old caretaker, wait-
ing for me on the steps when I went in at 11 P.M.,
for I had sufficiently explained that I wished to be
there alone for the night.

“*T wished to show you the room,’ he mumbled,
and of course I couldn’t exactly refuse, having
tipped him for the temporary loan of a chair and
table.

“¢Come in, then, and let’s be quick,’ I said.

“We went in, he shuffling after me through the
unlighted hall up to the first floor where the murder
had taken place, and I prepared myself to hear his
inevitable account before turning him out with the
half-crown his persistence had earned. After lighting
the gas I sat down in the arm-chair he had provided
—a faded, brown plush arm-chair—and turned for
the first time to face him and get through with the
performance as quickly as possible. And it was in
that instant I got my first shock. The man was not
the caretaker. It was not the old fool, Carey, I had
interviewed earlier in the day and made my plans
with. My heart gave a horrid jump.

“¢Now who are you, pray ?’ I said. ‘You're not
Carey, the man I arranged with this afternoon. Who
are you?’

“T felt uncomfortable, as you may imagine. I

THE WOMAN'S GHOST STORY _ 339

was a ‘ psychical researcher,’ and a young woman
of new tendencies, and proud of my liberty, but I
did not care to find myself in an empty house with
a stranger. Something of my confidence left me.
Confidence with women, you know, is all humbug
after a certain point. Or, perhaps|you don’t know,
for most of you are men. But anyhow my pluck
ebbed in a quick rush, and I felt afraid.

“Who are you ?’ I repeated quickly and nervously.
The fellow was well dressed, youngish and good-
looking, but with a face of great sadness. I my-
self was barely thirty. Iam giving you essentials,
or I would not mention it. Out of quite ordinary
things comes this story. I think that’s why it has
value.

“ No,’ he said; ‘I’m the man who was frightened
to death.’

“ His voice and his words ran through me like a
knife, and I felt ready to drop. In my pocket
was the book I had bought to make notes in. I
felt the pencil sticking in the socket. I felt, too,
the extra warm things I had put on to sit up in, as
no bed or sofa was available—a hundred things
dashed through my mind, foolishly and without
sequence or meaning, as the way is when one is really
frightened. Unessentials leaped up and puzzled me,
and I thought of what the papers might say if it
came out, and what my ‘smart’ brother-in-law
would think, and whether it would be told that I had
cigarettes in my pocket, and was a free-thinker.”

“¢The man who was frightened to death!’” I

repeated aghast.

340 THE WOMAN’S GHOST STORY

““< That’s me,’ he said stupidly.

“T stared at him just as you would have done—
any one of you men now listening to me—and felt
my life ebbing and flowing like a sort of hot fluid.
You needn't laugh! That’s how I felt. Small
things, you know, touch the mind with great earnest-
ness when terror is there—real terror. But I might
have been at a middle-class tea-party, for all the
ideas I had : they were so ordinary !”

“¢ But I thought you were the caretaker I tipped
this afternoon to let me sleep here!’ I gasped.
‘Did—did Carey send you to meet me ?’

“¢No,’ he replied in a voice that touched my
boots somehow. ‘Iam the man who was fright-
ened to death. And what is more, I am frightened
now !’

“So am I!’ I managed to utter, speaking in-
stinctively. ‘I’m simply terrified,’

““¢ Yes,’ he replied in that same odd voice that
seemed to sound within me. ‘ But you are still in
the flesh, and I—am not!’

“T felt the need for vigorous self-assertion. I
stood up in that empty, unfurnished room, digging
the nails into my palms and clenching my teeth. I
was determined to assert my individuality and my
courage as a new woman and a free soul.

“You mean to say you are not in the flesh!’I
gasped. ‘What in the world are you talking
about ?’

“ The silence of the night swallowed up my voice.
For the first time I realised that darkness was over
the city; that dust lay upon the stairs; that the

THE WOMAN’S GHOST STORY 341

floor above was untenanted and the floor below
empty. I was alone in an unoccupied and haunted
house, unprotected, and a woman. I chilled. I
heard the wind round the house, and knew the stars
were hidden. My thoughts rushed to policemen
and omnibuses, and everything that was useful and
comforting. I suddenly realised what a fool I was
to come to such a house alone. I was icily afraid.
I thought the end of my life had come. I was an
utter fool to go in for psychical research when I
had not the necessary nerve. ~

“*Good:God!’ I gasped. ‘If you're not Carey,
the man I arranged with, who are you ?’

“T was really stiff with terror. The man moved
slowly towards me across the empty room. I held
out my arm to stop him, getting up out of my chair
at the same moment, and he came to a halt just
opposite to me, a smile on his worn, sad face.

“¢T told you who I am,’ he repeated quietly
with a sigh, looking at me with the saddest eyes I
have ever seen, ‘and I am frightened sfill.’

‘By this time I was convinced that I was enter-
taining either a rogue or a madman, and I cursed my
stupidity in bringing the man in without having
seen his face. My mind was quickly made up, and
I knew whattodo. Ghostsand psychic phenomena
flew to the winds. If I angered the creature my life
might pay the price. I must humour him till I got
to the door, and then race for the street. I stood
bolt upright and faced him. We were about of a
height, and I was a strong, athletic woman who
played hockey in winter and climbed Alps in

342. THE WOMAN'S GHOST STORY

summer. My hand itched for a stick, but I had
none. °

“Now, of course, I remember,’ I said with a sort
of stiff smile that was very hard to force. ‘Now
I remember your case and the wonderful way you
behaved... .’

“The man stared at me stupidly, turning his head
to watch me as I backed more and more quickly to
the door. But when his face broke into a smile I
could control myself no longer. I reached the door
in a run, and shot out on to the landing. Like a fool,
I turned the wrong way, and stumbled over the stairs
leading to the next storey. But it was too late to
change. The man was after me, I was sure, though
no sound of footsteps came; and I dashed up the
next flight, tearing my skirt and banging my ribs in
the darkness, and rushed headlong into the first
room I came to. Luckily the door stood ajar, and,
still more fortunate, there was a key in the lock.
In asecond I had slammed the door, flung my whole
weight against it, and turned the key.

“I was safe, but my heart was beating like adrum.
Asecond later it seemed to stop altogether, for I saw
that there was some one else in the room besides
myself. A man’s figure stood between me and the
windows, where the street lamps gave just enough
light to outline his shape against the glass. I’ma
plucky woman, you know, for even then I didn’t
give up hope, but I may tell you that I have never
felt so vilely frightened in all my born days. I had
locked myself in with him!

“The man leaned against the window, watching

THE WOMAN'S GHOST STORY 343

me where I lay in a collapsed heap upon the floor.
So there were two men in the house with me, I re-
flected. Perhaps other rooms were occupied too!
What could it all mean? But, as I stared some-
thing changed in the room, or in me—hard to say
which—and I realised my mistake, so that my fear, _
which had so far been physical, at once altered its
character and became psychical. 1 became afraid in
my soul instead of in my heart, and I knew imme-
diately who this man was.

“«How in the world did you get up here?’ I
stammered to him across the empty room, amaze-
ment momentarily stemming my fear.

“<“Now, let me tell you,’ he began, in that odd
far-away voice of his that went down my spine like
a knife. ‘I’m in different space, for one thing, and
you'd find me in any room you went into; for
according to your way of measuring, I’m all over
the house. Space is a bodily condition, but I am
out of the body, and am not affected by space.
It’s my condition that keeps me here. I want
something to change my condition for me, for
then I could get away. What I want is sympathy.
Or, really, more than sympathy ; I want affection—
I want love!’

“While he was speaking I gathered myself slowly
upon my feet. I wanted to scream and cry and
laugh all at once, but I only succeeded in sighing,
for my emotion was exhausted and a numbness
was coming over me. I felt for the matches in
my pocket and made a movement towards the gas

jet.

344 THE WOMAN’S GHOST STORY

““¢T should be much happier if you didn’t light
the gas,’ he said at once, ‘for the vibrations of your
light hurt me a good deal. You need not be afraid
that I shall injure you. I can’t touch your body to
begin with, for there’s a great gulf fixed, you know;
and really this half-light suits me best. Now, let me
continue what I was trying tosay before. You know,
so many people have come to this house to see me,
and most of them have seen me, and one and all
have been terrified. If only, oh! if only some one
would be zot terrified, but kind and loving to me!
Then, you see, I might be able to change my con-
dition and get away.’

“‘ His voice was so sad that I felt tears start some-
where at the back of my eyes ; but fear kept all else
in check, and I stood shaking and cold as I listened
to him.

““Who are you then? Of course Carey didn’t
send you, I know now,’ I managed to utter. My
thoughts scattered dreadfully and I could think of
nothing to say. I was afraid of a stroke.

“¢T know nothing about Carey, or who he is,’
continued the man quietly, ‘and the name my body
had I have forgotten, thank God; but I am the man
who was frightened to death in this house ten years
ago, and I have been frightened ever since, and am
frightened still; for the succession of cruel and
curious people who come to this house to see the
ghost, and thus keep alive its atmosphere of terror,
only helps to render my condition worse. If only
some one would be kind to me—laugh, speak gently
and rationally with me, cry if they like, pity, comfort,

THE WOMAN'S GHOST STORY 345

soothe me—anything but come here in curiosity
and tremble as you are now doing in that corner.
Now, madam, won’t you take pity on me?’
His voice rose to a dreadful cry. ‘Won’t you step
out into the middle of the room and try to love
me a little ?’

“A horrible laughter came gurgling up in my
throat as I heard him, but the sense of pity was
stronger than the laughter, and I found myself
actually leaving the support of the wall and ap-
proaching the centre of the floor.

““« By God !’ he cried, at once straightening up
against the window, ‘you have done a kind act.
That’s the first attempt at sympathy that has been
shown me since I died, and I feel better already.
In life, you know, I wasa misanthrope. Everything
went wrong with me, and I came to hate my fellow
men so much that I couldn’t bear to see them even.
Of course, like begets like, and this hate was returned.
Finally I suffered from horrible delusions, and my
room became haunted with demons that laughed
and grimaced, and one night I ran into a whole
cluster of them near the bed—and the fright stopped
my heart and killed me. It’s hate and remorse, as
much as terror, that clogs me so thickly and keeps
me here. If only some one could feel pity, and
sympathy, and perhaps a little love for me, I could
get away and be happy. When you came this
afternoon to see over the house I watched you, and
a little hope came to me for the first time. I saw
you had courage, originality, resource—love. If only
I could touch your heart, without frightening you,

346 THE WOMAN'S GHOST STORY

I knew I could perhaps tap that love you have
stored up in your being there, and thus borrow the
wings for my escape!’

“Now I must confess my heart began to ache a
little, as fear left me and the man’s words sank their
sad meaning into me. Still, the whole affair was so
incredible, and so touched with unholy quality, and
the story of a woman’s murder I had come to in-
vestigate had so obviously nothing to do with this
thing, that I felt myself in a kind of wild dream that
seemed likely to stop at any moment and leave me
somewhere in bed after a nightmare.

“ Moreover, his words possessed me to such an
extent that I found it impossible to reflect upon
anything else at all, or to consider adequately any
ways and means of action or escape.

“T moved a little nearer to him in the gloom,
horribly frightened, of course, but with the begin-
nings of a strange determination in my heart.

“¢You women,’ he continued, his voice plainly
thrilling at my approach, ‘you wonderful women,
to whom life often brings no opportunity of spend-
ing your great love, oh, if you only could know
how many of us simply yearn for it! It would save
our souls, if you but knew. Few might find the
chance that you now have, but if you only spent
your love freely, without definite object, just letting
it flow openly for all who need, you would reach
hundreds and thousands of souls like me, and
velease us! Oh, madam, I ask you again to feel
with me, to be kind and gentle—and if you can to
love me a little!’

THE WOMAN’S GHOST STORY 347

“My heart did leap within me and this time the
tears did come, for I could not restrain them. I
laughed too, for the way he called me ‘madam’
sounded so odd, here in this empty room at mid-
night in a London street, but my laughter stopped
dead and merged in a flood of weeping when I saw
how my change of feeling affected him. He had
left his place by the window and was kneeling on
the floor at my feet, his hands stretched out towards
me, and the first signs of a kind of glory about his
head.

“«Put your arms round me and kiss me, for the
love of God!’ he cried. ‘Kiss me, oh, kiss me,
and I shall be freed! You have done so much
already—now do this !’

“T stuck there, hesitating, shaking, my determi-
nation on the verge of action, yet not quite able to
compass it. But the terror had almost gone.

“«¢ Forget that I’m a man and you're a woman,’
he continued in the most beseeching voice I ever
heard. ‘Forget that I’m a ghost, and come out
boldly and press me to you with a great kiss, and
let your love flow into me. Forget yourself just
for one minute and do a brave thing! Oh, love
me, love me, LOVE ME ! and I shall be free !’

“The words, or the deep force they somehow
released in the centre of my being, stirred me pro-
foundly, and an emotion infinitely greater than fear
surged up over me and carried me with it across the
edge of action. Without hesitation I took two steps
forward towards him where he knelt, and held out
my arms, Pity and love were in my heart at that

348 THE WOMAN’S GHOST STORY

moment, genuine pity, | swear, and genuine love.
I forgot myself and thy little tremblings in a great
desire to help another soul.

“<T love you! poor, aching, unhappy thing! I
love you,’ I cried through hot tears; ‘and I am
not the least bit afraid in the world.’

“The man uttered a curious sound, like laughter,
yet not laughter, and turned his face up to me.
The light from the street below fell on it, but there
was another light, too, shining all round it that
seemed to come from the eyes and skin. He rose
to his feet and met me, and in that second I folded
him to my breast and kissed him full on the lips
again and again.”

All our pipes had gone out, and not even a skirt
rustled in that dark studio as the story-teller paused
a moment to steady her voice, and put a hand
softly up to her eyes before going on again.

“Now, what can I say, and how can I describe
to you, all you sceptical men sitting there with
pipes in your mouths, the amazing sensation I
experienced of holding an intangible, impalpable
thing so closely to my heart that it touched my
body with equal pressure all the way down, and
then melted away somewhere into my very being ?
For it was like seizing a rush of cool wind and
feeling a touch of burning fire the moment it had
struck its swift blow and passed on. A series of
shocks ran all over and all through me; a momen-
tary ecstasy of flaming sweetness and wonder
thrilled down into me; my heart gave another
great leap—and then I was alone.

THE WOMAN’S GHOST STORY 349

“The room was empty. I turned on the gas and
struck a match to prove it. Ail fear had left me,
and something was singing round me in the air and
in my heart like the joy of a spring morning in
youth. Not all the devils or shadows or hauntings
in the world could then have caused me a single
tremor.

“T unlocked the door and went all over the dark
house, even into kitchen and cellar and up among
the ghostly attics. But the house was empty. Some-
thing had leftit. I lingered a short hour, analysing,
thinking, wondering—you can guess what and how,
perhaps, but I won’t detail, for I promised only
essentials, remember—and then went out to sleep
the remainder of the night in my own flat, locking
the door behind me upon a house no longer
haunted,

“But my uncle, Sir Henry, the owner of the
house, required an account of my adventure, and
of course I was in duty bound to give him some
kind of a true story. Before I could begin, however,
he held up his hand to stop me.

“<First,’ he said, ‘I wish to tell you a little
deception I ventured to practise on you. So many
people have been to that house and seen the ghost
that I came to think the story acted on their
imaginations, and I wished to make a better test.
So I invented for their benefit another story, with
the idea that if you did see anything I could be
sure it was not due merely to an excited imagin-
ation.’

““¢ Then what you told me about a woman having

340 THE WOMAN’S GHOST STORY

. been murdered, and all that, was not the true story
of the haunting ?’

“¢It was not. The true story is that a cousin of
mine went mad in that house, and killed himself
in a fit of morbid terror following upon years of
miserable hypochondriasis. It is his figure that
investigators see.’

“¢That explains, then,’ I gasped -——

“Explains what ?’

“T thought of that poor struggling soul, longing
all these years for escape, and determined to keep
my story for the present to myself.

«« ¢ Explains, I mean, why I did not see the ghost
of the murdered woman,’ I concluded.

““* Precisely,’ said Sir Henry, ‘and why, if you
had seen anything, it would have had value, inas-
much as it could not have been caused by the
imagination working upon a story you already

knew,”

Printed by BALLantynz & €o, Lmrrep
Tavistock Street, London

John Silence
by Algernon Blackwood

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by Algernon Blackwood

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